Join Dr Rad and Dr G as we discuss, spar, and laugh our way through different aspects of the ancient Roman world! Our main series 'From the Foundation of the City' follows Roman history year by year from the traditional foundation date of 753 BCE. We also interview academics and specialists from around the globe for their insights into history and the representation of Rome and the ancient Mediterranean in popular culture. Dr Fiona Radford is an expert on Rome on film and wrote her thesis on Kubrick’s Spartacus. Dr Radford is exponent of not only Ancient History, but also Reception Studies. Dr Peta Greenfield is an expert on the Vestal Virgins. Dr Greenfield’s research interests include: religion and politics in Rome, the late republic and Augustan period, and the role of women.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Join Dr Rad and Dr G as we discuss, spar, and laugh our way through different aspects of the ancient Roman world! Our main series 'From the Foundation of the City' follows Roman history year by year from the traditional foundation date of 753 BCE. We also interview academics and specialists from around the globe for their insights into history and the representation of Rome and the ancient Mediterranean in popular culture. Dr Fiona Radford is an expert on Rome on film and wrote her thesis on Kubrick’s Spartacus. Dr Radford is exponent of not only Ancient History, but also Reception Studies. Dr Peta Greenfield is an expert on the Vestal Virgins. Dr Greenfield’s research interests include: religion and politics in Rome, the late republic and Augustan period, and the role of women.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, we discuss one of the more tragic episodes from the Gallic sack of Rome.
We Who Are About to Die…
The Romans who have remained in the city take up their defensive positions on the Capitol. The old patricians did not join them. Instead, their retired to their houses. Wearing their old robes of state, they settled down in the middle of their houses on ivory chairs to await the end.
Livy reports that some of his accounts indicate that the pontifex maximus (chief priest) led the ex-magistrates in a vow, in which they were devoting themselves to death for the sake of the city and its citizens.
The Gauls found their blood had cooled; after all, they had not had to fight the Romans to seize control of the city. They had just wandered in. They could see that the Capitol had been fortified, so they kept an eye on that area. However, it was time to go SHOPPING! All these abandoned streets and houses – it was theirs for the taking.
After some pillaging and plundering, the Gauls touched base again in the Forum. The plebeian houses in the area were locked up – they weren’t taking any chances whilst they were out of town. But the houses of the elite were mysteriously open.
As the Gauls entered the patrician dwellings, a shocking sight met their eyes. The old ex-magistrates, sitting as still as statues, dressed in their robes of state, just waiting for them. Not quite believing their eyes, one of the Gauls reached out to touch the beard of one of the patricians. How rude! The patrician clocked him in the head with an ivory mace. The Gauls were not going to show restraint now. The patricians were slain, the houses of the Roman citizens looted, and finally, the city was set on fire.
But not the whole city – these Gauls weren’t FOOLS! They wanted to keep a bargaining chip in their back pockets. Maybe these pesky Romans on the citadel might surrender to save their homes?
The Romans in question were in their own kind of hell as they sat on the Capitol and had to watch the destruction. Fortune had turned her back on them.
Did this mean that the Romans were going to give up? It most certainly did NOT! When the Gauls finally assaulted the Capitol, the Romans were ready for them. They managed to hold the line. If the Gauls wanted to seize all of Rome, they were going to have to settle in for a siege.
As the Gauls made themselves comfortable and set about plundering the countryside, over in Ardea, the exiled Camillus heard of the attack on Rome. What could he do? Could he possibly whip up an inspirational speech and persuade the Ardeates to fight the Gallic invaders? You betcha!
Things to Look Out For:
· Dazzling rhetoric
· Far too much bloodshed
· Silent, manly tears from the Romans on the Capitol
· Ye olde time Roman racism
· The Gauls putting on a SHOW of destruction for the Romans
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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Marcus Furius Camillus is an ancient Roman that it is hard to ignore, especially in the early days of the 4th century BCE. He has been regularly popping up in our episodes from the era, so we thought it would be wonderful to invite on a special guest to discuss his whole life in one handy biographic episode.
Who is Marc Hyden?
Marc Hyden is the Director of State Government Affairs at a Washington DC-based think tank, as well as being a weekly columnist for the Newnan Times-Herald, Albany Herald, and Rome News-Tribune. Marc graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in philosophy.
Marc has authored many, many books on Ancient Rome. His most recent work is Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian (McFarland, 2025), and we will be talking with him about that in a future episode. He has also authored Gaius Marius: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Saviour (Pen & Sword, 2017), Romulus: The Legend of Rome's Founding Father (Pen & Sword, 2020), but our focus today is going to be on Marcus Furius Camillus: The Life of Rome’s Second Founder (Pen & Sword, 2023).
Things to Listen Out For:
· Camillus’ controversies
· Camillus’ rise to fame
· The many virtues of Camillus
· The legacy of this Roman hero
We are sure you will love hearing Marc talk about Camillus, the man who served as a role model for later Roman luminaries like Julius Caesar and Augustus.
If you would like to hear more, we have a stack of episodes in our back catalogue that feature Camillus.
Sound Credits
Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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We rejoin the Romans and the Gauls in 390 BCE at the place where the Tiber river intersects with the Alia river. Turns out that when a bunch of Fabians upset the Gauls, those Gauls decide to march south towards Rome… How many Gauls and how many Romans met at the rivers’ edge? Well, the numbers are probably unreliable but the Romans are pretty sure they are outnumbered.
There seems to be a few issues at this moment including the Roman failure to build a proper camp and - even worse - failure to take the auspices. Is this some foreshadowing from our friend Livy?
Stay tuned for a discussion of the slim layout of the Roman forces. Brennus, the putative leader of the Gauls, seems to be uncertain that there may be some secret tactic or force that he hasn’t been able to account for. There’s also the problem of which bank of the river the battle takes place on which may influence where Roman forces end up.
Will the Romans take the day or will they flail in the face of the Gallic strength? Are there some tactics involved that scholars can discern from the literary accounts that aren’t immediately obvious?
When the day goes against Rome, the retreat seems to be chaotic. Some of the Romans retreat to Rome, which makes sense, and some retreat to Veii. This creates a host of uncertainty for the Romans who survive particularly those who head back to Rome and don’t find their comrades there. The assumption of Roman losses is significant.
The Gauls meanwhile continue to suspect that there is a surprise attack from the Romans coming, but after some time they decide it’s worth marching on Rome just to see what they can see.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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We’re about to embark on a stunning period of Rome’s history in the middle Republic. Strap yourself in, this one is going to a take more a couple of episodes. We are, of course, dealing with the years that were 391/390 BCE. We begin with some of the important details that emerge for the latter part of 391 BCE which will have flow on effects for 390 BCE, which is the big ticket year that we’ll be navigating in this episode.
The title may have given a little away, but the Gauls are in Italy. North Italy specifically, but they are going to be travelling south and pretty soon they arrive on the doorstep of Clusium.
The Etruscan people of the city of Clusium seek support from the Romans. Unusual, yes, good for storytelling, also yes. Clusium is deep in Etruscan territory and yet it seems the Romans are willing to send a delegation to see what the Gaulish fuss is all about. The delegation is made up solely of Fabians, who are apparently meant to be neutral, but that aspect of the situation falls away pretty quickly when one of them kills a leader of the Gauls...
Rome (and particularly the Fabians) have really upset the Gauls so much so, that the Gauls make a bee-line for Rome moving swiftly through Etruscan territory to arrive at the point where the Tiber meets the Alia, just north of Rome. The speed of the Gallic movement catches the Romans off-guard and that's just the beginning of their woes.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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We are thrilled to sit down with Dr Francesca Fulminante to chat all about the development of settlements in central Italy from the Bronze Age to the Archaic Period of Rome. Dr Fulminante shares insights from her recent monograph: The Rise of Early Rome - Transportation Networks and Domination in Central Italy, 1050-500 BCE (2023) (Cambridge University Press).
This is a period where archaeological investigation reigns supreme requiring researchers to get into the nitty gritty layers of settlement patterns and trading networks. We’re thrilled to learn from Dr Fulminante as her research involves the investigation of complex societies in central Italy during the Bronze Age, looking at things like social stratification, settlement organisation, and craft community practices. Dr Fulminate is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol, and is an Associate Professor at University Roma Tre. Her work also involves offering continuing education training at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Coming to grips with the early evidence for Rome and central Italy involves understanding some of the overlapping terminology used by archaeologists and historians, who are coming to the evidence from different perspectives. Terms like the Bronze Age and Iron Age come to us from archaeology and anthropology while specific periods like the Archaic period and Early Roman Republic are much more society specific and tend to come from historians. This overlap can create a little bit of confusion, so here’s a rough breakdown (including some of the overlapping terms):
Dr Fulminante takes us through the early settlements of the Bronze Age and the transition to permanent structures in stone rather than perishable materials that occurs in from the 8th century BCE onwards. What does the evidence suggest for the development of ancient cities and the interconnections between them? Tune in to find out!
Things to listen out for:
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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391 BCE is jam-packed with action, but the event that stands out is the arrival of the Gauls in centre stage. It’s time to surf the Celtic Wave!
Revenge is Sweet… and Easy
The year began well for the Romans as they recovered from the pestilence that had caused such havoc the year before. Finally, they were strong enough to take down the Sappinates and the Volsinii who had tried to take advantage of their illness. Scoundrels! And it wasn’t hard at all – these guys barely put up a fight!
Portent for a Pleb
In spite of their success on the battlefield, there were signs of trouble ahead. A humble plebeian, Marcus Caedicius, heard a god speak to him in the dead of the night whilst he was on the Nova Via. The god (Aius Locutius, the speaking voice) told him that the Gauls were coming and that he had to let the magistrates know right away! The magistrates showed zero interest in anything this lowly pleb had to say. Um, why was this lowly man even talking to them? Didn’t he know they were patricians? And the Gauls? They were so far away, the Romans had barely even heard of them! Ridiculous.
Ciao, Camillus!
Arrogance continued to be a problem for the Romans. Having ignored a message from the GODS, they now turned on the best man who ever lived, Camillus. The last thing Camillus needed was drama as his young son had just passed away. However, the tribune of the plebs, Lucius Apuleius, cared not. He was coming after Camillus over the way he had handled the spoils captured from Veii. Rather than wait around to be convicted, Camillus went into exile – but not before asking the gods to make the Romans rue the day they had driven him away! Pretty please, gods of Rome, prove his innocence and put them in a situation which only Camillus could fix. Then they’d have to come back on their knees!
Getting Close to Clusium
Envoys from the Etruscan city of Clusium now arrived in Rome, seeking help against some troublesome Gauls who had arrived in their neighbourhood. This seems like an odd turn of events for so many reasons. The Romans did not have a strong relationship with Clusium. This was an Etruscan city quite some distance to the north. Perhaps they had been inspired by Rome’s performance against Volsinii? Although the exact details are questionable, there is no doubt that Gallic tribes had migrated into northern Italy. There are many stories associated with this Celtic wave, including some family intrigue, the lure of Etruscan fruits, wine – oh, and land! We wish we had more accounts from the Gauls/ Celts themselves, but we have to let the archaeology speak for them. The evidence confirms Celtic migration over the Alps and into northern Italy from the 5th century BCE and Livy seems to have been inspired by Herodotus in his own account of the varied Celtic peoples who crossed the Alps. Livy believes that it was the Senones tribe who rocked up at Clusium in the early 4th century, one the last to make the move. Although there is little archaeological evidence to suggest contact between these groups, let’s not interrupt Livy’s narrative. The people of Clusium were freaked out by these strangers and decided to turn to Rome. Surely the Romans would remember that they had not helped Veii out during the recent war? That must count for something? The Romans were not so sure. They decided to send the three sons of Marcus Fabius Ambustus as ambassadors to have a wee chat with the Gauls. They would issue a stern warning and hope that the new arrivals went on their merry way. No one wants a war, guys! In fact, the Romans would love to make new friends. How did the Senones respond? You’ll have to tune in for our epic multi-episode coverage of 390 BCE!
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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In this special episode, we tackle the second half of the 1963 epic, Cleopatra.
In the first part of this double-header, we tried to keep our focus on Cleopatra and Caesar and the initial challenges faced by #TeamCleo. However, today we get to delve into the second half of the movie when Cleopatra and Antony get it on. This means we finally get to discuss ‘Le Scandale’, aka the Taylor-Burton affair that developed on the set once these two clapped eyes on each other. Their passion would result in two broken hearts, a publicity sensation and not one, but TWO, marriages (and divorces).
Cleopatra (1963) is a classic example of how the context of a film can shape how the history was received. It’s hard not to see some weird parallels between Taylor & Burton and Cleopatra & Antony. We need to work on some couple names before this gets too confusing. Cleotony? Antra? Tayton? Burtay? We’ll keep workshopping these ideas.
Things to listen out for:
· Unexpected feline births
· The casting couch makes an unwelcome appearance
· Studio coups
· Editing wars
· Broken hearts (#JusticeforSybil&Eddie)
· Odd similarities with the production of Spartacus
· MORE production problems than you can every imagine!
One thing we have concluded after three hours of discussion: don’t start shooting a movie without a finished script.
If you enjoyed this discussion, you might be interested in checking out The Plot Thickens, who are doing a whole season on Cleopatra (1963).
Our Sources
Drs G and Dr Rad discuss ancient sources such as Florus, Cicero, Appian, and of course, Plutarch’s Life of Antony.
Brodsky, Jack, and Nathan Weiss. The Cleopatra Papers : A Private Correspondence. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963.
Geist, Kenneth L. Pictures Will Talk : The Life and Films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz. New York: Scribner, 1978.
Humphries, Patrick. Cleopatra and the Undoing of Hollywood : How One Film Almost Sunk the Studios. Cheltenham: The History Press Ltd., 2023.
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, and Daniel Ogden. “CELLULOID CLEOPATRAS or DID THE GREEKS EVER GET TO EGYPT?” In The Hellenistic World, 275-. United Kingdom: The Classical Press of Wales, 2002.
Royster, F. Becoming Cleopatra : The Shifting Image of an Icon. 1st ed. 2003. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-07417-1.
Southern, P. Cleopatra. Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2007.
Taraborrelli, J. Randy. Elizabeth. London: Pan Macmillan, 2006.
Wanger, Wanger, and Joe Hyams. My Life with Cleopatra: The Making of a Hollywood Classic. New York: Vintage, 1963.
Wyke, Maria. Projecting the Past : Ancient Rome, Cinema, and History. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Sound Credits
Our music is by the wonderful Bettina Joy de Guzman.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
Support the show
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392 BCE, the year that went down in history for “a campaign in no way memorable”. Ah, that Livy, he paints quite a picture, doesn’t he?
All About the Consuls
The campaign in question involved our consuls for the year. Yep, consuls! The plebeians were still in a blissful mood after receiving some of the land from Veii in the previous year and so they didn’t fight for military tribunes.
The consuls took care of a few domestic matters, such as holding the Great Games promised by Camillus during the siege against Veii and dedicating the temple to Juno (another of Camillus’ promises).
Once the gods had been satisfied, the Romans were off to fight the Aequians at Mount Algidus in the titular “campaign in no way memorable.” Come on Aequians, put up a proper fight! The decisive victory (and possible capture of the city of Liphoecua) earned the consul Valerius a triumph as he slaughtered so many of the fleeing enemy. His colleague, Manlius, was given the lesser honour of an ovation. Guess he didn’t kill as many men who were running away in terror! You can’t reward that kind of behaviour in Ancient Rome.
Kicking the Romans when they were really down
War found the Romans again in 392, this time with the Etruscan people of Volsinii and the Sappinates (which we presume was near Volsinii). The Romans could not respond with their typical vigour as they were hit by a horrific plague. Famine and pestilence were rampant in their part of the world, thanks to drought and a heatwave. These are the same environmental crises and disease mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus for the previous year, which goes to show how the dating for this period is a tad confused.
With the Romans too ill to fight, they send angry messages to their new enemies that they will get their revenge… just as soon as they can stop vomiting.
Good Censors are like Waffles
No one was immune from the pestilence. Censors had been elected in 393 BCE, but now one of those elected, Gaius Julius, died in office and was replaced with Marcus Cornelius. Spoiler alert, but we are only a couple of years away from the Gallic sack of Rome. This happened in the same lustrum as events such as the death of Gaius Julius. Livy asserts that the way he was replaced caused issues with the gods, and that the Romans would ensure the partner of deceased stepped down from office and two brand new colleagues would be placed in office in the future. This may not be accurate, but it certainly shows that the Romans were committed to the idea of collegiality.
The Scourge of the Plague
When the consuls also fell ill, they decided the Romans needed some fresh auspices. It was time for an interregnum! The consuls stepped down from office, and power was shared amongst the interreges until military tribunes with consular power were elected.
We know what you’re thinking – why interreges? This was a position created to deal with the transfer of powers between kings. It’s interesting that the Romans continue to use this position long into the Republic. The last time we saw interreges was only a few years earlier in 396 BCE.
We do mention a couple of Latin terms in this episode, so here is your handy glossary in case you need it!
· The pomerium – the sacred boundary of the city. This was religious in nature. The pomerium set the bounds within which the auspices could be taken.
· Reference to the lustrum – a lustratio was a purification ceremony. The lustrum condere was conducted at the end of a census by one of the censors.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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Cleopatra was released in 1963 and has gone on to herald the end of the golden age of the historical epic in Hollywood. Known as one of the most expensive films to ever be made, its troubled production and the on screen connection between Taylor and Burton have both cemented its place in cinematic history.
We have a look at some of the issues that led to production delays and there were a lot! From tricky weather conditions, Taylor’s health troubles, to issues with the script, there wasn’t an issue that this film didn’t face in the journey to release. Dr Rad delves into the details of the factors that influenced the production including:
The historical pedigree of Cleopatra is based on a few different sources including credit given to Plutarch, Appian, and Suetonius! The impetus for the film was also based on the book published in 1957, The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero. There’s a depth of references throughout the film that have support in the ancient sources. Dr G considers:
Keen to delve more into Cleopatra? Check out our conversation with Yentl Love about the reception of Cleopatra over time.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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We’re still in the year 394 BCE and we’ve seen Camillus has had a run in with the Falsican Schoolmaster. In this episode we move on further into the action of 394 BCE and look at 393 BCE as well. Is Camillus learning how to keep a low profile? He is praised from his success over the Faliscans and he doesn’t rush for a triumph this time. But the challenge remains, that Camillus’ forgotten vow to Apollo might be about to bite him on the bottom.
Rome is pretty intent on fulfilling Camillus’ forgotten vow to Apollo and this means a boat trip is in order. But sailing to Greece is not for the faint hearted, especially when you have such precious cargo as a golden bowl in tow. Tune in for adventures on the high sea!
The Aequians, a thorn in Rome’s side? Yes indeed. Do our sources agree? Of course not. It’s Diodorus Siculus against Livy, duking it out with Siculus having just a mention of trouble, while Livy comes packing details. We take you through the chaotic details. The conflict centres in the town of Verrugo but watch out for mention of Tusculum as well.
It’s time for the Roman census! We also see a return of the consulship in 393 BCE! The tussle about moving some of Rome’s population permanently to Veii is back on the agenda. There’s a faction in favour of a move to Veii and a faction against. Our sources seem to position this as a patrician/plebeian divide, but it might be more confusing or complicated than that.
Somehow, the Aequian forces, that were absolutely devastated in 394 BCE are BACK baby but their appearance seems only a flash in the pan compared to Rome’s troubles at home. There’s tribunes of the plebs to worry about, factional infighting over what to do about Veii, and some trials to contend with as well. It’s an exhausting time to be in Roman politics! Enter scene right: Camillus… How important was the tribune of the plebs right of veto? The question is raised in Livy’s narrative.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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In this episode, we continue to follow the adventures of that most amazing of Romans: Marcus Furius Camillus! This is one of his real shining moments of virtus.
Although the Romans have just conquered Veii, there was tension on those mean city streets. The patricians and plebeians were locked in a disagreement over what they should do with this new territory.
However, Camillus had military matters to attend to. He was placed in charge of subduing Veii’s allies, the Faliscans. This was no easy task as the enemy was well-prepared and the city of Falerii was easily defended.
Camillus was making some headway, but it looked as though this conflict was going to turn into another length siege. Boo!
Fortune sided with Camillus as the leading school teacher in Falerii decided to betray his people. He was in charge of the children of all the most important families in town, and what better way for kids to get exercise than to be marched right into the Roman camp?
We don’t want to give too much away, but what Camillus does next will make you swoon like a love-sick teen. Oh, and it also gave us our next idea for a T-shirt, so thanks Camillus! You sure are a swell guy!
M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 401, 398, 386, 384, 381
L. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat) Cos. 413, 409, Mil. Tr. c. p. 407, 405, 398, 397, 395, 391
C. Aemilius TI. F. TI. N. Mamercinus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 391
L. Valerius L. f. L. n. Poplicola (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 389, 387, 383, 380
Sp. Postumius – f. – n. Albinus Regillensis (Pat)
P. Cornelius -f. -n (--------) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 397 or 395
[?] Catlus Verus
Q. Pomponius
T. Sicinius
A. Verginius
L. Valerius Potitus (Pat) Cos. 393, 392, Mil. Tr. c. p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398
L. Sergius (Fidenas) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 397
A. Manlius (Vulso Capitolinus) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 405, 402, 397
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
Support the show
Read our books
Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
Support the show
Read our books
Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In our latest special episode, we were positively tickled to be able to chat to Dr Jane Draycott about her latest historical biography Fulvia: The Woman who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome (published with Atlantic Books).
For the uninitiated, Fulvia is one of the more notorious characters from the Late Roman Republic. If you’ve heard of her, it is probably as the wife of Mark Antony – the one he first cheated on with Cleopatra. What an honour.
However, in this episode, you will get to hear why Dr Draycott thinks she is so much more than that. Join us to hear all about Fulvia’s other husbands, her many children and the rhetoric that destroyed her reputation.
Dr Jane Draycott is a historian and archaeologist and is currently Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are extensive and include: displays of extraordinary bodies in the ancient world; the depiction of the ancient world in computer games; and domestic medical practice in ancient Rome.
In 2023, Dr Draycott published Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome with Cambridge University Press.
2022 was a huge year for Dr Draycott in terms of publications!
We know that you will be running out to get yourself a copy of Fulvia once you have heard the fascinating details shared in this episode.
And for keen listeners, rest assured that Dr Rad was keeping a tally throughout the interview of all of Augustus' hideous crimes :)
Our music is provided by the wonderful Bettina Joy de Guzman.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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It’s 395 BCE and we explore the events that are the result of the epic year of 396 BCE. The Romans ended 396 BCE on a high with their military success against the southern-most city of the Etruscans, Veii. But is all well in the Roman world? That may depend on which god you talk to…
The defeat of Veii leaves the northern peoples - the Capenates and Faliscans - open to Rome’s wrath. Their resistance to Rome means that war is on Rome’s agenda. This may also explain why we see military tribunes with consular power.
Despite the threats to the north, Rome seems intent on setting up a new colony down south towards Volscian territory. Does Rome really have the resources to spare for such an endeavour after a ten-year siege and problems north of Veii? Well, historians have some questions about that!
Camillus’ glorious leadership in taking Veii seems to be undermined by the his vow to Apollo which he had apparently forgotten. This creates real problems as the 10th portion to be offered to Apollo was not collected when the booty was distributed and now people OWE the gods… Will Camillus’ reputation emerge unscathed?
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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Rounding out our trilogy of special episodes on Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, we are joined by gladiator expert, Alexandra Sills.
Alexandra holds a BA in Classical Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London and a MA in The Classical Mediterranean from the University of Leicester. Alexandra’s MA dissertation was awarded the Mark Pluciennik prize in Archaeology & Ancient History. Alexandra has published outreach articles for Bad Ancient and Working Classicists and recently published an academic article entitled ‘The Tropification of Hollywood Heroes Thrown Into the Arena’ for Melita Classica in 2023. Alexandra’s current research focuses on gladiators in the ancient world and their reception on film and television. We’re thrilled to have her on the show to discuss all things gladiators.
We start with a history of the development of the gladiator in the Roman world including:
Are there things that Gladiator II gets right from the perspective of the ancient evidence? We discuss the possibilities with Alexandra.
Things to listen out for:
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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We return for the final instalment on the fall of Veii in 396 BCE.
In our previous episode, we witnessed the actual conquest of the great Etruscan city.
Now it’s Camillus’ time to bask in the glory!
Camillus has managed to secure victory for Rome, and one of the advantages now that it’s all over is that sweet, sweet booty. Everyone knew that Veii was wealthy, but Camillus is staggered (pun intended) by the number of captured spoils. As he offered detailed thanks to the gods, he stumbled. The Romans were a superstitious bunch, so although Camillus tried to gloss over this trip, it was seen as an omen. Camillus, and perhaps Rome herself, were destined to take a mighty tumble. Foreshadowing!
But that all lay in the future. Camillus had to decide how to divvy up the booty. He tried to take the sensible path and consult with the Senate, but he failed to please most of the populace with his choices. Ingrates!
The fate of Veii’s tutelary deity, Juno Regina, was an even more delicate matter. The Romans hoped they could persuade her to switch her allegiance and residence to Rome. Juno agrees to make the move and was initially established in a new temple on the Aventine. That little minx!
This is the first example of the ritual of evocatio, which we sometimes see pop up when Rome conquers Etruscan cities. This may have something to do with the fact that the rite probably originated in Etruria. We wish we knew more about this fascinating practice, but as usual, we have more questions than answers. The religious calendars of Rome indicate that the cult of Juno Regina did begin at around this time, so this may lend some support to our historical narrative. Either way, Veii has now not only been conquered, but stripped of divine protection. OUCH.
Back in the city, the Romans are thrilled with this military victory.
Camillus was mobbed by crowds upon his return. No one will be surprised to hear that Camillus was awarded a triumph. EVERYTHING about it was OTT. Not everyone thought this triumph was in good taste. After such an important victory, Camillus was eroding those warm fuzzies in record time. That is, of course, if we can believe the details. It’s hard to know what the norm was for a triumph in the early 4th century BCE.
Camillus ignored the haters, and busied himself with all the vows and promises he had made to various deities. There were temples to build for Juno and Mater Matuta, and then there was also the matter of gifts to Apollo. Camillus had pledged one tenth of the booty seized. The pontiffs decided that this needed to come from the people, who were less than impressed with a request to return some of their share of the spoils.
The year wrapped up with peace being secured on multiple fronts. Perhaps after seeing Veii’s defeat, the Volscians and Aequians decided to sue for peace themselves.
396 BCE truly was an epic year. We think you’ll agree once you’ve listened to all parts of our trilogy that it deserves to be known as ‘The Year That Had Everything’.
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
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WARNING! This post and episode both contain spoilers!
We are back to discuss Gladiator II, the sequel to Ridley Scott’s smash hit Gladiator (2000). Gladiator II is set in the joint reign of Caracalla and Geta. These emperors were brothers in real life, but not the creepy twins shown in the movie. However, let’s not get caught up in historical detail! After all, Lucilla should have been executed by Commodus in the first film if we were sticking to the facts.
In Gladiator II, we learn that Lucilla’s precious son, Lucius Verus, was hidden away in the provinces after Commodus’ death and became alienated from the imperial family. He clearly inherited the military skills of his real father (Maximus or Russell Crowe), as Lucius is something of a local hero in his new home.
But no one can resist the power of Rome forever. After a military defeat, Lucius ends up in the arena and spends the film wrestling with his past, his trauma and the corruption of Rome. Just like his dad!
Whilst Lucius Verus is the hero of this film, as is so often the case in movies about Ancient Rome, the villain steals the show. Macrinus (Denzel Washington) is a master manipulator, skilfully playing a dangerous political game. Will the ghost of Maximus past allow Lucius to finally set Rome on a virtuous path? Or is Rome doomed to be dominated by corrupt politicians?
And boy, do we have a treat in store for you all! We were privileged to talk to a giant in the field of classical reception, a man who has spent many decades studying Roman history on film.
Martin M. Winkler is Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Classics at George Mason University in Northern Virginia. His research interests include classical mythology, Roman history, classical literature, the classical tradition, and classical literature, history and myth on film. Professor Winkler’s list of publications is long indeed, but we will cite a few of our favourites. The Roman Salute: Cinema, History and Ideology (2009), Ovid on Screen: A Montage of Attractions (2020) and most recently, Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination (2024). Professor Winkler has edited and contributed to volumes on the films Troy (from 2004), Kubrick’s 1960 Spartacus, and importantly for today, Ridley Scott’s original 2000 Gladiator.
We hope that you enjoy our conversation with Professor Winkler in which we discuss:
For our full show notes and transcript, head over to our website: https://partialhistorians.com/2025/04/03/special-episode-gladiator-ii-with-professor-martin-m-winkler/
For our full show notes and edited transcripts, head on over to https://partialhistorians.com/
Support the show
Read our books
Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Fall of Veii is finally upon us – or perhaps we should say it was finally upon them! After a shameful defeat early in 396, the Romans decided to appoint a dictator. It is time for a Republican hero to burst into the spotlight. Welcome to the stage, Marcus Furius Camillus!
Episode 159 – The Fall of Veii: Part II
Camillus is a legendary figure of Rome, possibly in more ways than one. He was held up as an exemplar for generations. Even the emperor Augustus was a fangirl. We have mentioned him before, but it is his service as dictator during the siege against Veii where we get to see him shine for the first time.
Bronze Sculpture of Marcus Furius Camillus ca. 1st century AD from the Capitoline Museum. Courtesy of Ancient Times Blog Spot.
The appointment of Camillus restored a sense of optimism to Rome and people were literally queuing up to serve under him. With suspicious ease, Camillus dealt with Veii’s allies, the Faliscans and Capenates, before turning his attention to breaking the siege once and for all. Through clever use of tunnels and military distractions, the Romans defeated their enemy – at last!
Rome has been engaged in almost constant warfare with neighbouring towns and cities for an exceptionally long time, but it is hard to overstate the importance of this conquest. Not only was Veii a wealthy and serious rival, but this acquisition also doubled the size of Rome’s territory. To quote Camillus as he surveyed the battlefield, “Cha-ching!”
However, Camillus made some promises to the gods both before and after this final battle, promises that will have various impacts for our hero and for Rome….
Stay tuned for the next instalment on 396 BCE!
Need to catch up on the first part of 396 BCE? Check out Part One on the Fall of Veii!
Our music is provided by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of Orange Free Sounds.
Dr Rad 0:15
Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:18
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr Rad and
Dr G 0:33
I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:58
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am Dr G
Dr Rad 1:06
and I am Dr Rad,
Dr G 1:08
and we are in the middle of what is a chaotic time for ancient Rome. It's the year 396, BCE, and oh, boy, are they not having a good time, as far as we can tell so far,
Dr Rad 1:26
indeed, 396 is a very big year for Rome. However, the start of it was not great. Mm,
Dr G 1:33
not great at all. It seems like there were some reversals in the field. There were some poorly planned ambushes and some confusing dealing about with Father Son combinations in the military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 1:48
Yeah. Just for those who didn't listen to our last episode A) I'd probably go and do that, because this is a bit of a narrative that we're building here. However, we're dealing with the end of the siege of Veii, an Etruscan city just to the north of Rome. Rome has had a somewhat complicated relationship with over the years, extending all the way back. And whilst the ancient sources make reference to the fact that, oh yeah, there was this truce from the second big conflict between Rome and of Veii, and it run out, and then there was a king, and he was a bit of a douche bag. And not only did the Romans not like the king of A, but the Etruscans didn't like the king of Veii, and that's why all of this happened. In spite of that, as Dr G rightly pointed out in our previous episode, it's probably really about resources, trade influence in the region, because these are two increasingly important places, I would say, in the previous century that we've been looking at. Now we're entering a whole new century.
Dr G 2:54
It does seem like they is the Southern tale of Etruscan influence in the fifth century, BCE. And so the big power base that is through central to North Italy is the is a true area, the Etruscan people, and Rome is now this sort of growing player in the center of Italy. And they seem to want a slice of the Etruscan pie. They've decided maybe they has to go to make way for the growth of Rome itself into a grander place.
Dr Rad 3:28
And we've got some allies of ve who have realized that a growing Rome is no good for them. That's true,
Dr G 3:37
and Rome itself has been cultivating a whole bunch of their neighbors into being, variously allies or enemies, depending on how they've been treating them to the east and to the south. So there is a kind of a sense that there are a couple of blocks of power developing. The Etruscan block has been around for a long time, and it seems like maybe it might be on the wane in various ways, particularly when it comes to this southern edge where Rome is butting up against it. But there's also this sense that there are now growing disputes amongst Rome and her other neighbors, some of which are turning violent. The Volscian The Aequians, have been long on the radar. But there's also the
Dr Rad 4:22
turning violence.
Dr G 4:25
There's also the Hernicians and the Latins that seem to have come together with Rome. Now, before we get too much further into the action of this year, I want to hark back to something that came up a couple of episodes ago now, where you were talking about the Roman electoral process and the concept of the praerogativa. Yes,
Dr Rad 4:49
this is how Calvus was apparently chosen for election to be one of the military tribunes with consular power in 396 even though he was not running for said election.
Dr G 4:59
How. Could it be possible to get elected in when you're not even running? Well, no, the power of the praerogativa may be the answer to this question. Now we don't know too much about it. In this very early period, like many things to do with ancient Rome, we only become more sure about stuff when we hit about the mid to late third century BCE. So we're about 150 years away from having any good information to work with.
Dr Rad 5:28
So probably be in our 60s for the time we get to that.
Dr G 5:31
But those problems aside, this comes out of the concept of the comitia centuriata, which is this idea that some voting took place in a military style setup, where people were organized into centuries at some point in Rome's history, the idea of the electoral centuries deviates very wildly from the military setup. That's not our problem right now. We don't know what's going on, really, but we have this group, the comitia centuriata. They all turn up in their little groups. In their centuries, they head to the Campus Martius, and they get involved in a voting thing. Now, the prey rogativo Part of this is a invention that we don't know when it starts, but it is an innovation where they change who gets to be the first entry to vote. And it used to be the case that it always followed the same order. You would start with the equestrians, strangely enough, and then you'd get into the other groups. But with the concept of the prerogative of what you could do is that you could have a nominated group from one of the higher echelons of society be the first one to vote. It was kind of like a lucky draw, but only the best of the best got to be put into the draw to be selected in the first place, and then they would kind of set the tone for how the rest of the vote should go. Now it wasn't the case that all the other centuries, necessarily immediately would fall in line with what was voted for by that first group that was chosen as the prey rogativo. There seems to be some ideas that come to us in our very much later sources of the Republic like Cicero, that there was a bit of an omen component to all of this. So it was read as a bit of a sign of how the electoral result was going to go. So there was a persuasive factor in it that for the Romans would have been quite important, because they hold a lot of importance in things that relate to the gods and omens and signs. But that didn't necessarily seal the deal. But if you had a group that came out and decided that they wanted somebody in to be voted, like this situation with calvis, who hadn't been nominated, hadn't put themselves forward, hadn't canvas or any of that sort of thing, that could really turn the tide for something, because all of a sudden everybody like, yeah, we need that guy, yeah. Why wasn't he running? And that might have a cascading effect. I
Dr Rad 8:05
think it definitely did. Everyone decided they wanted a taste of that vanilla bean plebeian.
Dr G 8:13
And so this is how you might get somebody voted in who didn't stand for a position, absolutely,
Dr Rad 8:19
unfortunately. Dr G, he hasn't got much longer in this position that we're talking about. We did list our magistrates in the previous episodes. By the way, everyone I know you're used to us listing out who all the magistrates are. So if you want to know the full details, please go and listen to the previous episode.
Dr G 8:36
I was going to say, I'm not going to put myself through that again. Yeah,
Dr Rad 8:40
definitely not. It's way too much Latin for anybody to have to repeat. So we were up to this point in my narrative of Livy, where a rumor had gotten out of hand after the Romans had suffered a military reversal in the field against these allies of they, the Faliscans and the Capenates, who, by the way, were not themselves Etruscans, but were allied with they, because they were geographically and presumably politically tied to they, and they understood that the Romans were going to be coming for them, so they had managed to secure this success. Everyone's panicking in the city. Women are praying. The Romans feel like it really is time for Veii tofall because they've done everything that the gods wanted them to do. They have drained that stupid album Lake, which had too much water. They have also made sure that the issue in the previous year where you had the magistrates elected improperly, that's been resolved. So they've repeated whatever rituals or held whatever festivals or sacrifices needed to be held again, so they're ready. They're like now is the time God's to show us that you've been paying attention. Have you been paying attention to all the things that we have done to please you? And it turns out, Dr G. That maybe they just have, however, before we get to that moment, it's time for a dictator to be elected. Because clearly, with one military Tribune with consular power, dead in the field, and the other one disgraced, because this defeat is so embarrassing, you need someone with real chutzpah.
Dr G 10:20
Well, it does make sense, because everybody in Rome, as we noted in the previous episode, is in a bit of a panic. People have rushed to the temples being like guards, help us out. People have run to the walls of the city to look over and be like, can I see the enemy approaching? Like, is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the Etruscins. So that level of panic is the kind of thing that sets the stage up really nicely for the ultimate panic move that Rome has, which is put a dictator in charge, and
Dr Rad 10:56
are you ready to meet him? Dr G my name is Marcus Furius Camillus, father to other people with a similar name, related to people who are Spurius Furius and
Dr G 11:08
I will have my vengeance
Dr Rad 11:12
in this life all the next. I'm part of the Furii clan, but I'm always very calm. Actually, I
Dr G 11:17
feel like we could both be a pretty good Russell Crowe. Maybe we should do that one time.
Dr Rad 11:21
Well, Rusty, if you're listening, love to have you on the show, mate. Let's collaborate. So Marcus Furius Camillus is part of our favorite gens, the fury eye, however, lacking the praenomen that we prefer.
Dr G 11:37
He is no Spurius. That's true, he's
Dr Rad 11:39
no Spurius. But you know what, it seems like, the ancient Romans didn't care as much about the alliteration of their names as we did, because he is definitely, I'm gonna get a limb, the most famous of the Furii clan. I'm not gonna go into all the details about him right now, because that will obviously unfold as we go into this. But the whole fall of a that is about to happen very much tied up with this particular figure.
Dr G 12:04
You've given away the game too soon. I'm
Dr Rad 12:06
sorry, but I feel like I've said it at least 100 times by now, everyone should know. So there's a few important elements to the story of the fall of a which, as we've said, is so crucial to the way that the Romans view their own history. They say this is such a big thing that happens to them, and Camillus is a part of that. Now, we've talked in the previous episode about the fact that people like Livy are writing much later. They're building on a variety of sources. You know, family Chronicles, epic poetry, archeology, presumably like some remains and stuff that they see around and one of the things that they would probably have seen people like Livy. I mean, when I say they there's a statue of Camillus that was erected and still around, I would say, in his time period. And Camillus actually becomes a really important figure for the way that the Romans think about themselves and what makes a virtuous citizen. You know his story has huge resonance throughout the ages. He's someone who inspires later, people like the scipios, who we'll hear about during war with Carthage, Sulla and even your favorite Dr G Augustus, yes. So
Dr G 13:18
Camillus ends up having this incredible reputation. That means that he has a type of fame that within Roman society is pretty rare. It's ongoing. People refer back to him. He gains a whole bunch of prestigious kind of epithets that are associated with him. This is the start of his journey in some respects that we're going to be looking at in this particular episode. And I think it's going to be the culmination of his career as a whole, which I reckon we'll we'll do a wrap up episode where we we look at all of that in detail, because this is going to be part of his story, but not the whole of it. And this is the start of the sorts of things that will make his reputation. But it's not like he gets off to like a fantastic start now, obviously it is an amazing thing to be made dictator. That doesn't happen to most Roman politicians. There is only a select group of these people that end up in this role, and the idea of the dictator is really a product of need. So Rome has found itself in a desperate situation. They think that everything is looking terrible, and they turn to a single individual and say, can you take charge of everything? Carte blanche while you're in power, look after this problem and solve it for us. And they choose Camillus in this moment. And it would be amazing if we knew what it was about Camillus that made him the preferred choice. And maybe Livy talks about this, but certainly none of my sources reveal that to me.
Dr Rad 14:57
I was going to say I'm so glad you asked.
Dr G 15:01
I've set you up so well, gonna give you
Dr Rad 15:03
a bit of foreshadowing here about Camillus, there is a bit of doubt about whether he actually existed
Dr G 15:10
or, Oh no, he's
Dr Rad 15:13
one of those people. Look, I think a lot of people agree that he is a historical figure. However, like with a lot of things from this time period, including the fall of they he's been so mythologized, and there have been so many layers added to him, including, again, by Augustus, the fact that Augustus is like, hey, who am I going to put in my gallery of heroes when I'm working on the forum of Augustus, I know. I'll put Camillus in there. It's hard to untangle all of those different layers, because we don't see a clear emergence where the Romans are gradually adding things. So it's really hard to know exactly who Camillus was, where he came from, but certainly the fall of they has become an important part of his great story as a citizen of Rome. I think I would say that in the scholarship, most people think that this particular part of his story, this fall of a part of his biography, is probably one of the earlier events that are attached to Camillus and his legend. So whether that makes you feel more secure or not, dear listeners, let us know.
Dr G 16:30
Can I tell you some of the things related to this incident that come up in the source material that I have so you can verify against what Livy might be telling us. So it seems that he becomes dictator. And I don't have heaps of details about how that comes about, but I suspect it's the usual way. And then he's basically in charge of the siege of they and that that seems to be the main thing that he has to take care of. They're like, solve that problem for us, buddy. Yeah, it's only been 10 years that have been great to have a solution. And he's like, Sure, I'm your man. And then I get a various sort of combination of things where he either deviates from that plan slightly and does some things with the Faliscans, or he remarkably
Dr Rad 17:18
Dirty.
Dr G 17:20
He does something for Faliscan. I don't know if you're into that sort of thing, but, uh, yeah, something's going on there. And I can talk about a bit more of that detail later if it indeed fits in this year. And that's the other thing that I'm struggling with with my source material, is I'm not sure what sits in what year for some of this stuff. But the other story that gets told about the siege of Veii is that he wraps it up quite quickly with a series of tunnels.
Dr Rad 17:44
How dare you ruin the end of my story. I'm sorry, Livy, you're totally on path. I don't have much information either about why Camillus is the one who's chosen. However, lest we forget, Dr G he was one of the elected magistrates for this year, and he is from the Furii who have been very much a part of our narratives for the past 100 years. So one can only assume it's because he is part of a fairly prominent, influential, powerful Roman Gens. I will say one thing I have noticed whilst reading about Camillus, and made me reflect, because, as I say, he is held up as this Roman general par excellence. He is the fatalis Dux, the fateful leader, the one who comes when Rome needs it the most and turns things around in a really spectacular fashion. It made me realize that, like with movies, often the good guys are more boring than the villains. I mean, look with Roman history, as we talked about, because certain families are thought to have certain character traits. Sometimes it just feels like you're meeting the same person again and again, because they seem to be very similar to each other if they're from the same family, like with the happiest Claudius of the world that we have met, but there's still something kind of fantastic about how evil those sorts of people are in our minds, by our standards, whereas someone like Camillus, I don't get a strong sense of his character. And maybe this is because he's been a little bit mythologized. Hmm, maybe it's also because the Roman virtues for someone to be considered an exemplar, because Camillus definitely becomes an exemplar. So that's where the Romans tell a story about a person and hold it up so that other Romans can learn from their example about how to behave politically, how to behave as a citizen, how to behave militarily, because that's part of their whole idea of citizenship. And being a good Roman, Camillus is definitely one of those. And it's been a little while since I feel like we've had one of these figures who is an exemplar for others to follow well,
Dr G 19:48
but it's not like he is a clean, straight laced exemplar that you can just hold up and be like, Look at this heroic figure who does everything right, because he seems to get. Whole bunch of things wrong.
Dr Rad 20:01
Well, does he or did the Romans get it wrong and then they felt really bad about it? No, wait
Dr G 20:05
for it. I mean, I I assume that Livy would have this story about Camillus. But part of the problem for Camillus with the siege of they and however he takes it and the complexities of this tunnel system are outside of my source material, but I'm excited that they're there, because I always think tunnels are highly unlikely in the ancient world as a system. But you know, how long does it take you to dig a tunnel? I don't know. And how many tunnels did you have? I don't know. Have they been working on them for nine years? And it's just that Camillus finished the tunnels. I don't know that could be believable, but there is this story that is also told in companion with this story about how great he is, and how he is this sort of exemplary leader, where he seems to have a bit of a mixed relationship with the gods.
Dr Rad 21:02
Should we save that for later in his story? I
Dr G 21:06
don't know. I mean,
Dr Rad 21:09
look, I tell you what I'm gonna say, let's save it, because I think I know what you're going, where you're gonna go, and that's like the end of the narrative that Livy gives me. Oh, you reckon okay. I reckon so. I reckon so. Look, I do think I know what you mean, and I'll just say at this point in time that, yeah, you're right. But Roman examples, I don't think have to be perfect. It's more that, I suppose it's more that they are thought to teach something important in at least the majority of their life. And look, I think his failings also say something that's important too. It's not that they can't make mistakes. To me, they tend to be a little bit robotic, almost in the way that they behave. But anyway, we will see. So we have our dictator Camillus, who we will go into later. We also obviously need a master of the horse, every dictator's assistant,
Dr G 21:58
Yeah, gotta have somebody to do the paperwork. I mean, exactly.
Dr Rad 22:02
Can't expect the dictator to do it. He's got way too much to do. We've got Publius Cornelius Scipio. Now this is a name that might ring some bells to people. So the scipiones come from the malukinensis, that horrible name that we hate to say. And he is actually listed in the Fasti as Publius Cornelius Maluginenses. Now, what does that say to you? Dr G,
Dr G 22:28
that says to me that the scipios are trying to borrow his story from later on. Yeah, they decided they wanted to hop on that bandwagon. There might be two branches of that family. And yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure. But I mean, the Cornelii are a very exceptional, well known foundational partition family as well. So yeah, the layers of the way that these families will then branch out is going to become important to understanding how Roman political structures operate, because it the family thing is huge. So, yeah,
Dr Rad 23:01
look, it's not impossible that there is somebody from this family at this point in time which will become a very big deal. But we don't have someone that we feel super confident about from this family until the 350
Dr G 23:17
I was gonna say, I feel like, yeah, it's too early for scipiones. This
Dr Rad 23:21
is the general feeling, but nonetheless, here they are again, potentially showing us that the analysts or Livy are using sources from this family, and that's how they end up in earlier periods than they perhaps should be. How convenient? Yes, with the dictator, chosen master of the horse, chosen Rome, apparently, like they've had a makeover. They're feeling wildly optimistic. All of a sudden, their morale is through the roof. I mean, Rome is just literally bursting with possibility at this moment in time. Dr, G, it's
Dr G 23:56
a quick turnaround. It's the like the highs and the lows. Rome is having a very emotional roller coaster ride right now. They've they've had that huge dip where they're like, the ambush and the tragedy, and now they're like, and now we've got the best guy in as dictator, and it's going to be great. I
Dr Rad 24:12
love the way that the Romans work. Now the first thing that Camillus does as dictator is he decides he needs to dish out punishment for anyone who ran away from the encampment at they during all that horrible panic. Oh, no, yeah. He's like, you found that scary? You found the Falsicans and the Capenates coming at you scary. I'll show you scary, my friends. So he deals with that situation because he can't have cowards, right? Certainly not involved in a siege. Can't have that, Okay, fair enough. He also needs to set a levy. Gonna need some troops, obviously. So he sets a levy. He then rushes out to they, because He wants to spread that optimism to the encampment in front of they. Then he's back to Rome. Him for the levy, which he had set before he left. He's just zipping all over the place. And because Camillus is so amazing, there are no problems at all with this Levy. In fact, everyone is super keen to get in line and serve Camillus. I was
Dr G 25:15
gonna say this is why they made him dictator, because obviously he's charismatic, and it's like, it's hard to resist. And you're like, sign me up if I have to die, I want to die under Camillus, exactly
Dr Rad 25:27
what the Romans are feeling at that point in time. In fact, not just the Romans. Dr G, the Latins and the Hernicians, who you alluded to earlier, also said, Rome, we're totally behind you in this my friend, Sign me up. What a man and Camillus gives official thanks to their allies in the Senate. He's like, thanks very much, guys. Presumably this means that there were envoys who had been sent from the Latins and hanisians who made some sort of official presentation. Got my slideshow here. Sorry, the PowerPoints just on the on the fritz. Just wait one second. So
Dr G 26:02
this is the location of Veii. This is Rome. And as you can see, we just down here. And so what we're going to do is we're going to send some of our men up to Rome, and then they're going to join with Rome, and then they're all going to move north, you see, and that's how we're going to do it.
Dr Rad 26:16
Bob's your uncle, mate, sweet as. Camillus' also makes some large promises. Dr G he says that there will be great games, not just games, great games celebrated if they is taken, and this is apparently in pursuance of a senatorial decree, which seems anachronistic, because we don't think the Senate issued senatorial decrees at this moment in time. But let's ignore that and pursue our narrative. He also says that he will restore and rededicate the Temple of Mater Matuta, which had been originally set up by my favorite King Servius Tullius. Yes,
Dr G 26:58
yes. Now this does come up in some of my source material as well. So this also is Plutarch, who also insists that the master of the horse is Cornelius Scipio, which I did nothing with in my notes originally, because I was like, yeah, that's not a thing. But now that you've mentioned it, I can, I can confirm that that is an idea that continues. But yes, this idea that there will be a dedication to the Goddess mata matuta and the great games is something that Plutarch definitely goes into. And Mater Matuta herself is a pretty ancient kind of deity. So she's known in Italy. She's known in Rome. And the matuta name has a couple of different meanings, the idea of in the right moment. So she's the mother of the right moment. This is also translated as the good mother. And so there's this sense in which she is also has bears resemblance to later Christian figures as well. So she's often depicted holding a child with a solar disc around her head. And might be giving some people some imagery. How
Dr Rad 28:11
suspicious,
Dr G 28:13
and we know that she has an archeological record that goes back to at least the seventh century BC. So there's some votive offerings that are found in Latium that are connected to her. Hers is one of the oldest temples that we know about archeologically in Rome as well. So her temple is right near the forum boarium, which, if you've been to Rome, or you plan to go, is right across the road from where you've got the guy that you can put your hand in the Mouth of Truth, the Mouth of Truth just across the road. And there's a very impressive circular temple there that you can see that's to Hercules Victor, which is a much later temple. But below that there are some foundations for a temple to mata matuda, so she's considered quite ancient, even within the archeological record of Rome. So for Camillus to heart, back to her, there is some good evidence to suggest that that's not a crazy thing to do, that she is a goddess that the Romans are already very interested in and have been interested in for a long time. And maybe this is a moment of potential renewal for her cult, which is kind of exciting.
Dr Rad 29:25
Of course, it's not crazy. It's Camillus that we're talking about here. He's going to do everything to inspire the Romans and make sure that they get this amazing victory, which is right there, Dr G, right
Dr G 29:40
so close, so close, we can almost see it. We
Dr Rad 29:43
can almost see it. So Camillus and his army, freshly gathered, march out. They fight those darn Faliscans and Capenates in the country of the Nepesine, which I believe refers to the town of Nepi which. If you were going to Italy nowadays, would be known as nepi and as you might expect, is to the north of Rome. Everything's to the north of Rome at moment.
Dr G 30:10
I mean that. I mean that, obviously this is their big deal at the moment, everything to the north.
Dr Rad 30:16
So as you would expect, Camillus is very prepared. He has thought things through, unlike titanius and gaucius from the previous year. And so everything goes to plan. The Romans completely trounce the enemy. They take their camp. They take loads of booty. And I can't emphasize enough loads of booty. How
Dr G 30:40
big is the booty? A lot.
Dr Rad 30:42
Yes, exactly. It's very, very impressive. Most of it is given to the quaestor, though not directly to the soldiers. That's going to become an important detail later. I think remember
Dr G 30:55
this detail, the quaestor has all the booty
Dr Rad 30:59
they're off to find ve itself, and this is where they start to take a different approach, because Camillus is a genius. So previously, because it was a siege, you've got men on both sides, and they're constantly engaging in minor skirmishes. 10 years of minor skirmishes. Oh god, yeah, I'm gonna throw this at you, and you're gonna throw a stick at me, and I might throw something sharp and pointy, and
Dr G 31:29
your mother smells of elderberries.
Dr Rad 31:31
Yeah. I don't know what a skirmish looks like in a siege, but you know, particularly between the town walls, where the Romans have set up this. Okay, that's obviously where the action has been concentrated for the past 10 years, but we can all say it's not really going anywhere fast. So Camillus says to the people who are assembled there, no one is to fight unless I personally give you a specific order that you are allowed to fight. So no fighting whatsoever. I don't care what names they call you. I don't care if they're giving you the stink eye. I don't care if they spit in your general direction. Not happening.
Dr G 32:08
All right, so if the population of they were to decide to make an attack under these circumstances, are the Romans just to lie down and let it happen to them?
Dr Rad 32:20
Look, these are questions I don't have time for. Look, I presume if they were attacked, obviously, that would be a different story. But he means no more skirmishing. Just lay low. You don't need to fight. Just walk away. Just walk away.
Dr G 32:35
Don't think you're in charge of this siege. And start your own skirmishes because you're feeling in a bad
Dr Rad 32:40
mood. Instead, it's time to dig, send down 30 feet of rope. Now this is what is where we come back to what you were talking about, the tunnels. The plan is they're going to dig a mine that will take them right to the Citadel of they and for those of you who don't watch enough fantasy stuff, or aren't into ancient warfare, when we're talking about the Citadel, we're talking about the heart of they also
Dr G 33:08
don't think too hard about this from a geographic perspective, because the city of they, as we know, is sitting on a plateau of tufa. So it's going to take some time to hack away at the sheer rock that this city is sitting on to create a whole series of tunnels.
Dr Rad 33:26
Camillus is way ahead of you. Dr G, he has a plan. Okay? He knows that in order to get through this as quickly as possible, he needs someone to be digging at all times. So he splits the men into six groups, and each group has to work for six hours at a time, and then they rotate. So that way the digging is happening day and night, night and day.
Dr G 33:52
This is a Okay. So we've got a workforce that is operating 24/7, for however long it takes to cut through all of that rock. Yep, cool.
Dr Rad 34:05
And now this is an interesting point, because we've been talking a lot about tunnels when it comes to things connected with Veii. So obviously we've talked about the tunnel that was built in order to drain the excess water from the Alban Lake, which apparently needed to happen in order for the Romans to secure victory against Veii, and that would be the moment when they became vulnerable, the vulnerable Veieans, that's right. Yep. We also, lest we forget, Dr G had a tunnel mentioned in a previous conflict with Veii when Fidenae was the bone of contention back in the 430s or the 420s who knew when that was taking place? But definitely earlier than this. I
Dr G 34:49
think the thing to keep in mind here is that once Livy has introduced the idea of tunnels into his narrative, it's just going to keep going. So. Once we have this concept of tunnels being used for military purposes, everybody gets excited, and now you can use them all the time. It seems challenging. Like Veii is a city that is sitting in a reasonably hilly area. It is a volcanic area. It gets its water not just from the nearby river, but also from the spring systems, which are endemic in this region of Italy because of the volcanic activity. So there is a lot of natural sort of water courses that are happening underground. You could follow some of them potentially and open them up more. That might be a way to build some tunnels, but it does seem like a tricky business. I'm not saying that the Romans aren't capable of it, but I do have some questions, and I'm not sure that we've seen archeologically that there's any evidence for tunnels underneath they although I'm happy to stand corrected, please atroccologists, get in touch with us and help us out with this thorny question of the siege of Veiiand the tunnels that are apparently associated
Dr Rad 36:04
with it. Well, I can't class myself as an Etruscanologist. However, it is possible, as you've said, that this seems to be part of the narrative in multiple ways. And we know that there is actually some sort of tunnel with the Alban Lake situation. So there is some proof there. It's possible that, obviously this became an older part of the story, that people like the analysts and then Livy had to weave the narrative around it and incorporate it somehow. It is an entirely out of the question, because we know that the Greeks did use siege mines. So for example, there is one used at the siege of platea by the plateans. So that does happen. We do also know that there are these things, these cuniculi, which are drainage tunnels, which are found throughout the landscape in this area. It is possible that rather than, say, digging it, which, as you say, might be tough, maybe the Romans found a drainage tunnel that had been blocked up or closed off, and they just emptied it, and that's what they were doing. However you are quite right. I believe that at the moment, we haven't found one where you might expect to find one. So there definitely are some questions about this, but I don't want to discredit Camillus, because the Romans certainly think he is the ants pants.
Dr G 37:32
Yes, I was going to
Dr Rad 37:34
say the bee's knees. Yeah, as you say, it's all very quickly turned around. You know, Camillus can tell that victory is near because of his genius digging program. They're digging for victory.
Dr G 37:48
They're digging, yeah,
Dr Rad 37:51
and he knows that he is getting very close to being able to seize they. And he also understands just what this will mean for Rome. This is such a big deal. They is really their only big competitor in this region, as we've talked about, in spite of the political reasons that we're given for this conflict, there's an awful lot of other stuff at stake here too. So Camillus knows that this is going to be really, really big. In fact, he's expecting that there will be more booty in the capture of a wealthy Etruscan city like they then. The Romans have perhaps ever captured before, if you put everything that they've done all together,
Dr G 38:25
especially considering they're often like just exchanging booty and finding refining their sandals that they lost last time, this would be a chance to actually acquire new stuff.
Dr Rad 38:35
I'm telling you, you know, laundry markers could have changed everything for them. Now, thinking ahead, because Camillus is a planner, as we know. He's no titanius organucius. He's worried about, what is he gonna do with all this booty? What are you gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk?
Dr G 38:54
That's a good question. What is he gonna do? Well,
Dr Rad 38:57
he understands that the soldiers might turn against him if he's not seen as being generous enough to them with this booty. So there's obviously an expectation that, given that they have put aside their weekend plans to help him conquer they there is an expectation that they will be rewarded for their efforts. However, the Senate might be angry if he's too generous to the average soldier. Now I should say Livy actually says the fathers, but as we know, he uses these terms very interchangeably, so I'm presuming he means the Senate, because he immediately writes to the Senate and says, Look, victory is getting near. It's going to be amazing. What should I do with all the stuff that I'm about to capture so brilliantly? The Senate had different opinions, and this is where we get into my favorite part of this narrative. We go back to our friend old puble. Licinius calvis, Oh, Mr. Moderate himself, all right, Mr. Moderate himself, who was apparently too old to be magistrate, and yet his son says to him, Dad, I want you to take the floor. Hmm, why would this happen? You ask good question. Dr, G, there is absolutely no reason why this would happen. It would be extremely odd for someone who is not a magistrate and a plebeian to boot, randomly be asked to be the first to speak on such an important matter over all the patrician senators who apparently are staring daggers at him right now. Why is he considered so senior in the Roman state right now that after being the first plebeian military Tribune with consular power, after coming out of nowhere in 400 all of a sudden, four years later, he gets elected without running for office when he doesn't want to do it. He's like, Oh, take my son. And everyone's like, Yeah, cool. And then in a moment of great, important public debate, and his son's like, Dad, I want to hear from you. Everyone's totally fine with this look. I
Dr G 41:12
think I am incredulous, and I hear the incredulity in your voice as well. So I think we're on a similar sort of emotional wavelength here. But I also wonder about the nature of what characterizes the Senate, because this is true. Age is definitely a huge factor. Of considerable years
Dr Rad 41:36
old and his memory's going asides going exactly
Dr G 41:38
this is guy's bit deaf, having trouble seeing doesn't seem like he's up to the gig. Is old enough that he feels like he should nominate his son to do most of the work. But when push comes to shove, his son is like, actually, I think my dad needs to take the floor and have something to say. There is a very conservative tradition amongst the senators about who gets to speak and when. Sure, and we know a lot of that from later periods of history, not so much this period. But if this group of fathers, which for so long we just assumed was all patrician, but as it has turned out now, seems to have always had at least one Levy.
Dr Rad 42:23
It's this guy and his family the whole time, the
Dr G 42:28
whole time, maybe they've been there for a while. So he may actually be in a position of quite seniority within the context of the Senate itself, and often asking the oldest to speak first is less about monetary capacity or other ways that you might measure somebody's worth within the context of Roman society, and is actually that idea of the fathers and the wisdom that comes from your elders. And potentially, this is what's going on for calvis In this moment, where they're like, he is really old. Maybe he's got something to say.
Dr Rad 43:08
Look, I hear what you're saying. I totally get it. You're right. He is very elderly. But the idea that there aren't equally old patricians who I mean, think about all the times we read out the list of magistrates and we're like, oh yeah, this guy's had about eight. You know, I just find it hard to believe that the one military tribuneship With consular power that he's held somehow makes him outrank everyone else. Just considering that we had not heard of this guy up until a few episodes ago. It just seems so funny. And again, it kind of indicates that Livy must be leaning on Licinius Macer or Macer, depending on your preference, as a source who wrote about his family's achievements when he was writing his work. So I just kind of feel like that maybe has something to do with it. On top of which, as we said last time, most of our sources, apart from Livy, agree that the dad is the one who's the magistrate. So this would indicate that if he's the one who's speaking first, he's speaking, because he's an old magistrate in power. That would make sense this whole idea that his son held the office in his place. And then thought, You know what, this is my moment to shine, but Dad, you take the floor.
Dr G 44:27
Look. I could still believe that. To be honest, the idea is not so much that Calvus is not the preferred candidate in flavor of his son. He's delegated some of the job to his son. He may still very well be the magistrate, and even if he's not, and technically, his son is fulfilling the role. Everybody knows that it was Calvus The elder that people wanted in the position, so they're still going to defer to him, because he's got all of the cache. That has been built up through everything else. We're missing the incidents that's Yeah,
Dr Rad 45:07
totally. Anyway. Look, there are some questions. There are some questions clearly, but we will proceed.
Dr G 45:12
And like many things, we do not have the answers. So
Dr Rad 45:17
Licinius Calvus Senior, he stands up and he says there should be a public proclamation issued where anyone who wants some of the spoils that are going to come from, they need to get up and go to the camp at Vay right now. That's the way you stake your claim. You get up and you go, wow. Strange system. But okay, I guess it dips. It's basically ancient Roman. Dibs.
Dr G 45:42
We are not carrying it back for you. You won't have to go yourself
Dr Rad 45:47
too much stuff. It's a wealthy city like come on, guys, unreasonable. Now our old friend Appius Claudius is now going to take the floor in opposition to Calvus. For those of you who haven't listened to the past million episodes that we've released, appias Claudius, the Appii Claudii, they're known for being Uber patricians, very conservative. So no shock that this particular Appius Claudius thinks that this is an outrageous suggestion, far too generous, not at all fair. In fact, indicates that this dude is too old. He's gone crazy, lost his marbles. No. Thank you.
Dr G 46:25
This is a bullock suggestion. Yeah.
Dr Rad 46:27
Now, you know, I hate to side with someone from this family with my natural leftist leanings. However, once again, there is a little bit of sense to what he says, If we believe this whole narrative, which is that Rome has been going through a lot of warfare lately. In case no one's noticed there's a siege going on, that's kind of why we're having this conversation. The Treasury is drained because of all this conflict. They should instead use whatever booty comes from the capture of a to pay the soldiers once again. Dr G, they the siege of a it all comes back to this question of military pay. Okay,
Dr G 47:09
well, that would make more sense in many respects, absolutely, let's pay the people who have done the job.
Dr Rad 47:15
On top of which he actually points out that this would be of benefit to the plebs, because, whilst they're not getting the booty in their pocket immediately, it would mean that less war tax is required to fund military pay, which apparently is something else that exists at the moment, and we've had discussions about the reality of that, but I'm not going to get into it again. So everyone would benefit in one way or another, if they just were sensible and put the booty in the bank.
Dr G 47:45
All right. Well, okay, so that means somebody's definitely going to have to carry it from they to Rome, because how did it? Can't just stay in Veii. That's not how gaining wealth works. It's all based on the physical stuff you've you've got to move it.
Dr Rad 48:00
Look, I hear your practical sense coming through. Miss Virgo, but I don't think that this is what Appius Claudius is most worried about. His big concern is that lazy city slicker types are going to swoop in and take the rewards won by others and the real fighters, the real heroes, Dr G the men who've been on the front lines would miss out. So this is another very important point that he makes, that noble fighters from Rome always are the least greedy, and therefore they're going to miss out if the Romans don't take some sensible steps here. Wow.
Dr G 48:41
This is just a moment where Rome is like, we're about to be more successful than we've ever been, and we do not know how to handle that.
Dr Rad 48:50
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's their lottery day, and they're like, oh my god, we're gonna be millionaires. What do we do? A new house. We put in a pool.
Dr G 48:57
I need a financial planner. They haven't even won yet. They're getting well ahead of themselves. It's
Dr Rad 49:04
a shoe in Dr G. I mean, this is the funny thing, right? After a 10 year siege, I love the fact that everyone keeps saying, Oh, they're trying to build it up to be like the Trojan War. Like this is nothing like the Trojan War in the sense that it seems like a foregone conclusion at this point in time. We all know it's really hard to tell the story of the siege of a without giving away the ending, because we all know where it's going, because they knew before it happened that it was going to happen. But anyway, now Livy is doing his thing here, where he has very contrasting speakers. You know, Calvus, obviously, is our vanilla bean plebeian, very moderate. Appius Claudius, once again, going in hard like his family always does, being able to play the plebeians like a fiddle and the patricians, to be fair, everybody loves a good speech from one of the Appian Claudius. However, Licinius comes back. Licunius Calvus comes back with another attack. He's. Says, Look, this money is going to cause huge problems. Let's be honest, the plebeians are going to arc up if we don't look after them, and it's going to lead to them making outrageous demands, like laws that might be to their benefit outrageous. Why not take this moment to get the plebs on side by being very generous. They are extremely tired. We can all see that they've been very cranky every morning. They're not in a good mood. They're teary all the time.
Dr G 50:32
10 years of a siege will do that to you? Yeah.
Dr Rad 50:36
They're also broke, after so many years of having to pay this apparent war tax, which obviously is paid by everybody. It's not just something that's peculiar to the plebeians. However, obviously it's toughest for the poorer people who are apparently the plebeians, at this moment in time to pay this particular war tax. It would mean so much to them as well, in a symbolic sort of way, if they were able to take something from the enemy rather than have decisions made for them and then be divvied up to them, is some form of payout or some sort of benefit, it would mean more to take it with their own hands, to be like, Aha, I'm taking this vase, and I don't care What you have to say about it, person from Veii, you're my enemy. The Senate would also come away from this looking like the coolest dudes. They'd be Mr. Popular all over the place, and we could all use a little bit of that.
Dr G 51:38
Goodness me, what a time to be alive as a Roman watching.
Dr Rad 51:44
I feel like I have to tell you where this debate ends up.
Dr G 51:47
Please do. I mean, I have some details, but I'm just not even sure where they fit at this point in time. So I'm really waiting for the end of this debate so I can figure out what to tell
Dr Rad 51:55
you next. I told you, this is a long 396, it's a big year. Yeah, it's amazing. I'm enjoying it. In the end, they go with Licinius, and a public proclamation is made that if you want a payout, you need to go to they and get it yourself. Oh, boy,
Dr G 52:12
after Appius Claudius was so reasonable and everything
Dr Rad 52:14
I know. Look, I have to admit, there is something annoyingly pragmatic about what he says, and that was the case the last time we had a big speech from somebody from this family. I can't actually remember if it was the same guy. It probably was. Wasn't that long ago. So lots of Romans do indeed hit the road and go to the camp because they want to get their pair out.
Dr G 52:35
I want my booty. They open the walls.
Dr Rad 52:39
Now, I know we are getting to a bit of a long point with this episode, but we're so close to they actually falling I feel like I have to take you there. Dr G, take me there. I'm ready. So in the camp Camillus Is there, like a good general and a good Roman, he takes the auspices to make sure that everything is in their favor now. Dr G, do you want to tell us a bit about why he'd be doing this. What are the auspices?
Dr G 53:01
Well, it's very important you can't undertake any military action without consulting the gods first. So the auspices is when you look at the patterns of bird movements, generally speaking. So if you have been in Europe, you will have probably been lucky enough at some point to see a muration of starlings. For instance, the patterns that these birds make when they move around the sky can be incredible. Now, it's not just starlings that you might be interested in. It could be eagles. It could be vultures, whatever's out there, but reading and interpreting those signs gives you an indication of maybe how the gods are feeling whether it's a good time to do a bit of an attack where it's time to open up those tunnels and burst out of your Trojan tunnels, slash horse, is it time? Nobody knows. So consulting the birds can really help with something like that. So Camillus undertaking that duty, it does make sense. As a dictator, there is a sense in which there is a religious element to the role, and he could be very well in charge of looking after that side of things as well. So he may have some people on hand to help with the interpretation, but definitely he would be allowed to lead something like that, and it would be important for him to do so in the eyes of everybody from the Roman side, to make sure that everything is okay for going ahead with whatever happens next.
Dr Rad 54:29
Well, he clearly got the green light from the birds, and so he goes out, prepares the soldiers. He also chooses this moment to make a vow. Now, I know you're going to want to jump in on this, but I'm I'm just going to tell the narrative and then we can unpack it later. So he makes a vow that he was led by Pythian Apollo. So probably because of the connection the Romans have had in recent years with this whole siege the lake Delphi. And with this God on his side, he is going to be able to conquer they and as a token of his appreciation, he is going to send Apollo the most gigantic box of Lindt chocolates. No, I'm just kidding. He's going to send a tithe of whatever spoils he captures to Apollo. He also asks Juno, a very important goddess in ve to switch sides and come and live in Rome once they have totally trashed the city where she currently is hanging out. And he promises he would set up a really lovely temple with a white picket fence and a slide in the backyard, if she would agree to come over.
Dr G 55:44
He's like, hey, girlfriend, you want to come over to my place? Forget these guys.
Dr Rad 55:49
Yeah. Now there's a moment that we're going to have to talk about with that later, but for now, I'm going to proceed. So Camillus now makes his advance against fair that much anticipated moment. He's many soldiers on his side, because the Romans could not be more enthusiastic about this. And they attack. They on every side. However, this is not the key to victory. Dr G, this is a mere distraction from the real attack, which is, of course, through the tunnels. That's right, we've seen the Romans do this many times, where they have a distraction and then the real thing going on elsewhere. This is a popular military tactic. Now the people of they did not know that the odds are totally stacked against them at this point in time. Of course, we know that there's been an old soothsayer from they who's totally betrayed his people by telling the Romans everything, maybe under torture, to be fair, but they don't know that. They don't know all the stuff that the Romans know at this point in time. They don't know that the Delphic Oracle has said that they is going to fall. They don't know that the gods had been made these promises if they switched sides and desert them so they have no idea of what is coming. They also have no idea about the mine. Apparently, all that digging was incredibly quiet. They had silences on their pickaxes. So they just do what they would normally do. They run to the ramparts. They've got their weapons. They're wondering why? All of a sudden, after being pretty Quiet on the Western Front for a while, No, I shouldn't say that pretty quiet on the Northern Front for a while, the Romans are being incredibly energetic in their attack. They're like, Oh, what is going on? That's been very, very tame, and now all of a sudden it's like, they're mad men, and we're being attacked on all sides, what is going on. Now, I do love this next part, because Livy tells me specifically, and I quote my translation at this point, men introduce a tale. For those of you who love historiography, this is history being made before our eyes. People, this is Livy telling me that he doesn't believe this story for a second, but he's going to include it anyway, because it's become a part of the folklore of the fall of they, and that is that the king of they, the douchebag that barely started all of this, just because he wasn't very well liked, was making a sacrifice. Now, the Romans in the mine have dug so deeply into they that they can actually hear what is going on, because they haven't broken through the wall yet. But you know, they can hear it. They hear the soothsayer that is with the king say that whoever cut up the innards of the animal that he's about to sacrifice would win this war between Rome and they. So they instantly seize their mermaid. They're like now, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. They break through the wall, they grab the entrails, they race back through the mine, and they present Camillus with the entrails so that he can be the person who cuts them and wins the war. Sounds tasty and not at all slippery. I know delightful, just the kind of thing you want to hear before a meal. However, Livy knows he's talking about something that happened a really long time ago, and I love what he says about it. He says this story more fit to be displayed on the stage that delights in wonders than to be believed. It is worthwhile neither to affirm nor to refute. He's like, You know what this is for the movies. I'm not even gonna talk about it. It's not worth my time. What
Dr G 59:31
a tricky moment in Roman history, bursting in on a sacrifice. And, yeah, you know, stealing the entrails.
Dr Rad 59:41
You can see why. You know, I said in the previous episode that this part of Livy, where he's talking about the fall of Veii is often something that people like to capture. This is where I think you can get that sort of cinematic feeling from Livy, even he knows it. Let's get back to reality in the mind filled with soldiers and all of us. Sudden, they break through into the temple of Juno, which was on the Citadel of a which was their target point. So all of a sudden they are attacking some of the people from they from behind. You know, they're not expecting this. Obviously, they had no idea that the mind was there. Even though the Romans can hear them, they can't hear the Romans naturally intriguing others. Others race off to break down the gates. Women and slaves inside, they are apparently throwing stones and tiles at the Romans from the roof, and some of the Romans then retaliate by attacking them with fire. Interesting little detail there. We do know some things about roof tiles. They are often thrown.
Dr G 1:00:41
They can be deadly. Yeah, those things are
Dr Rad 1:00:44
heavy. The horrific sound of war fills the air. Women are screaming, children are crying, men are shouting. It did not take long for soldiers to be thrown over the walls of their city and the gates of they to be opened. The Romans are able to storm this enemy city. Battle is taking place literally everywhere. It's
Dr G 1:01:14
happening in the streets. Now, the weakness of the tunnel coming from within, it's not looking good for they
Dr Rad 1:01:21
and so Veii is taken. Dr G, it falls, just like we knew it always would, thanks to that trait of this there and the lake and the Delphic Oracle. And as it all starts to wind down, because the Romans have secured their victory, Camillus has his heralds proclaim that anyone without weapons will be spared, because, being an all round nice guy, he wants to prevent a lot of unnecessary killing from taking place. So those without weapons handed themselves over. The Romans, however, now turn their eye to the really important part of this mission, and that is booty, and that might be a good place, I think, to pause, because they has now fallen, but there's a whole lot of stuff that we're going to need to unpack about that next episode, I think. And as we get into the question of booty,
Dr G 1:02:18
yes, I think so. Now, one of the things that is common in the sources that I have is a prayer that Camillus makes to the god Jupiter, amongst others. And I'm not sure about where that happens in this timeline either, because it hasn't come up in Livy's account yet. So there is this one thing about Camillus journey this far as dictator and into the heart of they, which I think is worth mentioning because it's going to start to have some consequences for him. And this is the moment where he offers a prayer to the gods, and in the moment of doing so, he makes some promises, like, I want this to all go really well. I'll do whatever is needful to make sure that the gods are kept happy. I'm willing to accept personally any blame for stuff that doesn't go well with this whole situation. So as dictator, and also fulfilling that kind of religious service function in this role, he's really trying to make sure that everything gets pulled off really nicely. And the weird detail that continues to come up about this moment is that, as he's doing this whole prayer thing and being like, let's make this whole situation as great as possible. I'll make this as good as I can. I'll do whatever is needful. I'll make the sacrifices. I'll give you the things later, if as long as we can pull this off, God's help me out. At the end of the prayer, he has a bit of a fall down. He has, yeah, he stumbles. So he has this moment where he's like, I'm going to make this go as as well as I can be in right relationship with the gods. But the moment where he turns around, because apparently he's veiled his head, which is a very traditional and appropriate Roman thing to do in this context of addressing the gods, to appear veiled as he turns around, slipping seems to be a pretty bad sign about how all of this is going to work out, either for Rome or for him, and I feel like that leaves us with another little bit of a cliffhanger, even though we seem to be in a really successful moment for Rome and its siege of a which seems to be in the midst of concluding now in a very successful way for the Romans. But this little religious stumble is perhaps going to be a problem for old mate Camillus. Yes.
Dr Rad 1:05:00
Now look, you are totally right in Livy's account. It's when he's looking at all the booty that the Romans have just gathered after they've finished the fighting part of this evening's entertainment, and he it's just more than he could ever imagine. And that's when he starts doing that thing where he gives thanks to the gods. And it is an interesting prayer, and it is one, I think, that repeats in Roman history. We might talk about that a bit again another day. But it's certainly that idea that he says, Look, if any of the gods or any other men thought that he was being given too much good fortune and would get jealous of him, then he would personally sort that out and deal with that, hopefully without damaging his own prospects and life, and without any damage to Rome itself and the Roman people, which is a really weird thing to say, if you think about it, it's not that. He's not just saying thanks for the booty he's making this really weird thing. And as you say in Livy's account, he does fall over, which everybody sees as an omen, apparently. But I agree with you. I think it is more indicative of the fact that in Camillus' life there are going to be some low lows as well as some high highs. Oh
Dr G 1:06:18
boy. Well, strap yourselves in. Listeners, Camillus, wild ride has only really just begun, it would seem, oh
Dr Rad 1:06:26
yes. And so, dr, G, I think it's time for the partial pick.
Dr G 1:06:37
Okay, the partial pick? Well, Rome, let's see how you stuck up against your own credentials. We have five categories of which they can earn up to 10 golden eagles in each one. So if Rome is being as Rome as it possibly could be, they could end up with 50 golden eagles. So let's see how they go. Okay,
Dr Rad 1:07:00
so for this part of 396, military clout. Dr, G, what do you reckon? Wow.
Dr G 1:07:06
I mean, top notch military clout. I mean, they're wiping the floor. They're taking a whole city. It's all going really well. There's tunnels, there's wall assaults. Everybody's having a great time. People sign up willingly to the levy.
Dr Rad 1:07:21
Going, great, go to the plebs. Insight,
Dr G 1:07:25
it's basically as good as it could be. Yeah, I feel like, you know we're we're nine or 10 territory here. I think
Dr Rad 1:07:31
so too, because, you know, it's not just they obviously remember, Camillus has dealt with the Faliscans and Capenates with zero trouble. I mean, so little trouble. We don't even get an account of what exactly happened. We just get told that it's done dusted. Well,
Dr G 1:07:44
I might be able to tell you some more details about what happened, at least with the Philistines next episode. Oh, yeah.
Dr Rad 1:07:50
No, that. We'll get to some stuff about them. But I mean, the the initial, the initial, putting them in their place, that's just effortless, done
Dr G 1:07:57
and dusted. Yeah, yeah. Military clout, 10 out of 10. Golden Eggs.
Dr Rad 1:08:03
Remember the last time we did that? In fact, I don't know if we've
Dr G 1:08:06
ever given a 10. Yeah, this is impressive stuff. The second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 1:08:13
Okay? I feel like this is not as good. I mean, we do have the Latins and Hernicians coming to Rome and saying, Whatever you do Rome, we're there for you. And Camillus being like, Thanks, guys. I tip my hat to you. I tip my laurel wreath,
Dr G 1:08:31
yes, but it's not at all clear that the Romans necessarily went out of their way to source that support in this particular instance, or whether the Latins and hanushe came to Roma, were like, Well, looks like you could use some help. Or, you know, so it's not the details of it is not clear. So the idea, the central question here is, how much negotiation is being employed by the Romans in order to reach their goals? And since I'm not sure about that, but they do have some help, so we have to assume there's some negotiation, even though we don't know what it was. Then maybe we're looking at like a four or five.
Dr Rad 1:09:11
Oh, wow. That's way more than I was going for. I was gonna give them like a two.
Dr G 1:09:16
I'm clearly having a good day where I'm being very generous.
Dr Rad 1:09:20
You know what? You've been infected by Camillus spirit, just like the Romans were. You're feeling wildly optimistic. I am being way too generous.
Dr G 1:09:29
Well, how about a three then, okay, three, it is expansion. Yes.
Dr Rad 1:09:35
I mean, this is a really big deal. We will talk about this, I'm sure, multiple times. But just to give the listeners some sort of perspective, dr, G, now that they falls under Roman control and remains there, estimates vary a little bit, but we're thinking that this basically doubles the territory of Rome, maybe even more than double, maybe adds like another. 60% to what they currently possess. It's a really, really big deal. They is a very prosperous Etruscan city.
Dr G 1:10:07
This is a massive moment. So yeah, if you think about it on just a scalable level, like Rome, is nothing like this sort of Imperial Rome that you see in popular film and things like that. This is a small city state that controls adjacent areas that are local to the city, and that's true for all of their neighbors as well. So Veii is its own city state, and they have more of a connection to a true area than they do to the Latins or the Romans or anybody like that. So this is effectively doubling, if not more, as you say, the capacity of Rome in terms of what they control, because they've now taken a whole major other city, yes. So this is huge, off the charts, massive in terms of expansion,
Dr Rad 1:10:59
yeah, and an Etruscan one at that. I mean, come on, we know that taking land is obviously going to mean a lot for the Romans, because we've had these ongoing issues of debt, and we've had questions about public land, which, look, they're probably anachronistic, but they're being raised so in the narrative that we're dealing with, this would definitely be a big deal. Plus, as you highlighted in the previous episode, its resources, its influence in the area. I mean, they don't really now have another major rival in this Tiber Valley area. Yeah,
Dr G 1:11:33
Yeah, it's pretty impressive. So in terms of expansion, I think we're also looking at a nine or a 10.
Dr Rad 1:11:40
Let's give them a nine. I think.
Dr G 1:11:45
Are they ever going to expand as much, percentage wise, upon themselves as they I was
Dr Rad 1:11:50
gonna say yeah, there are Yeah. There are some other victories and expansions that are obviously going to be very important. But in terms of percentage, I feel like this is a big one. This is huge, okay, so maybe 10, yes, proportionally, it's all proportional. Rome, don't get too
Dr G 1:12:07
my Camillus enthusiasm continues, indeed, all right, that leads us to the category of virtus. Ooh.
Dr Rad 1:12:18
This is a bit of a tricky one, because Camillus is obviously a very impressive, important figure, as the Romans think of him. But would you say we've really seen an act of virtus? Dr, G, no, yeah, I don't think so either, not in this moment I think comes later in his career.
Dr G 1:12:38
Yeah, it's not like so for Camillus to be participating in, like a classic virtus moment, we'd expect things, something like leading from the front, so him actually popping out of the tunnel first, for instance, could have been a thing. It wasn't he clearly sent people ahead. Other things that might constitute weirdos for him is him facing off with the king of they and having a one on one combat. We don't hear anything about something like that happening. So whoever that guy is, he seems to really fall off the radar. And we don't get that sort of really personalized commander on commander thing that you would also definitely classify as a weirdos moment. So yeah, in that sense, like it's not that Camillus isn't doing a great job. He clearly is. He's encouraging everybody. But those things aren't considered traditional Roman weird tours. No,
Dr Rad 1:13:32
exactly. And also, I'm not so sure I subscribe to this idea of the king of a I mean, he pops up at the beginning of this story to get this war started, pops up at the end. We never really get much information about him, apart from everybody hates him. Who is this guy? Well,
he ain't no Lars Tolumnius, that's for sure
Yeah, okay, so not really. And surprisingly, even though we get this very cinematic description of the fall of a in Livy, where, again, he's probably going for a bit of an epic moment there. We don't get anyone who is singled out for their achievements, which I find surprising. I feel like that would surely have been a moment for somebody in Roman history, but maybe they just don't want to detract from Camillus. You know, this is his moment
Dr G 1:14:19
to shine, yeah, yeah, like kimberlius have his moment in the sun. And the other point where you might potentially have some weird to us is in the senatorial chamber with the speech exchanges and how those go down depending on what people say. But it sounds like it's a very reasonable debate, and it's not the sort of one where people start showing off their scars or anything like that. So we're not getting into like big masculine Roman energy there, either. We're just getting some exchanges of opinions, which seems pretty standard for the day. Yeah, so I'm gonna say zero for virtus, because I'm not seeing any clear examples. I'm
Dr Rad 1:15:00
not, but you did just give me a great idea for a T shirt. It's not BDE, it's B, R, M, E,
Dr G 1:15:10
well, you know, I'm happy to make more T shirts. And our last category is the citizen school.
Dr Rad 1:15:18
Well, I do feel like there's some things to celebrate here, even though normally, you and I would say that wartime is probably not a fantastic time to be wartime Rome not a great time. They seem to be extremely excited about this one, and it goes very well for them. As I say, it's almost effortless in spite of all the mining. And then also the people who weren't even involved in the siege get told to grab their stuff and head on out to the camp and, you know, take some spoils for themselves.
Dr G 1:15:57
Line up, get yourself a piece of a
Dr Rad 1:16:02
I love to think of they as being like the Berlin Wall is these days. You know how people say, you know, I have a piece of the Berlin Wall. I feel like that's what people in Rome would be saying, they, Oh, my, my great grandfather still has a piece of they. You know, he still has some jewelry that he wrestled out of the hands of a crying woman. This
Dr G 1:16:22
bowl came from the temple in Veii, you know? Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:16:26
pretty much I feel like that is something that you would be trading in if you were a dealer of antiques in Rome. So
Dr G 1:16:35
everybody has the potential to increase their wealth slightly. And so part
Dr Rad 1:16:40
of it to be part of history. Dr, G, yeah.
Dr G 1:16:43
Oh, it's great. Yeah, fantastic. Sack of a city, get in there constructed
Dr Rad 1:16:49
before our very eyes. I mean history, not the city. The city is being torn down before our very eyes. I
Dr G 1:16:54
was like, kids do not do as the Romans did. No, not cool. Okay, so, but on the citizen score level, as far as the Romans are concerned, this is a great time to be a Roman citizen. You've got this real opportunity. It seems like the fighting was pretty easy in the end, they just needed that little push off the edge, which was the tunnel system. And once that happened, it was like a house of cards, and now it's booty Central, so probably at least a five, if not more, I
Dr Rad 1:17:24
think probably more. I reckon we have to go an eight for this one. I mean, not a 10, because obviously people are still dying, but I feel like it has to be an eight. Everyone seems very excited. There's not a whiff of tribune of the plebs in this entire account. Yeah,
Dr G 1:17:42
they're not even listed as magisters for the year. That's how unimportant they are, yeah.
Dr Rad 1:17:47
And I mean, we've also got, you know, a plebeian hero as magistrate, or his son as magistrate, speaking up and winning against Appius Claudius, although, once again, it seems like class loyalty is bit of an issue, because he is talking about the fact that, hey, let's get the plebs on side, and they've been doing it tough, clearly not associating himself. I think with that particular group of people, it
Dr G 1:18:13
does sound like there's a lot of unbelievable things that are happening for this year. I'm happy for it to be an eight. Let's do it. Fantastic.
Dr Rad 1:18:19
Well. Dr, G, hold on to your hat. The Romans have actually got over 25 Golden Eagles. For the first time in a really long time. We're at the grand total of 31 golden eagles. Oh,
Dr G 1:18:36
my goodness, that is massive. I know we haven't even
Dr Rad 1:18:41
talked about the whole year. I mean last episode, because we only did the very beginning of the year. They only got one. But if you add that one, it's 32 so far and counting. For 396, BCE, very impressive,
Dr G 1:18:52
Rome, after what feels like a real sort of a desert scape of partial picks for the last few years, they're making a resurging comeback Absolutely,
Dr Rad 1:19:05
and we haven't even finished this year yet. Dr, G, I still have so much more to tell you.
Dr G 1:19:12
Well, I look forward to our next episode together.
Dr Rad 1:19:15
Indeed, you
music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buying us a coffee on ko fi, in return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say hello, hello, hello to Hannah, Dillon, Karl, Aether and Not who are enjoying. Their one year Patreon anniversary with us. Thank you so much for being a part of our partial band. However, if you spent all of your money in the post Saturnalia sales, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.
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We are super excited for this conversation. Owen Rees is the founder of the website badancient.com and we’ve been lucky enough to write a couple of articles over there on some misconceptions about the ancient Romans. So when we heard that Owen had a book coming out, we absolutely wanted to have a chat.
Special Episode – The Far Edges of the Known World with Owen Rees
The Far Edges of the Known World is coming out through Bloomsbury Press February 2025 and is all about what’s happening beyond the traditional centres of power that are the focus of historians such as Greece and Rome. What becomes clear in this conversation is that the written sources produce a focus on the centres of power for historians and that the archaeological record is critical to appreciating what’s happening in areas that weren’t the centre.
We start with a little bit on Ovid’s poor attitude to being in Tomis on the Black Sea and what that reveals about Rome BUT also reveals inadvertently about that society. There are generalisations about what place is where to navigate – where was Libya or India really? There's also plenty of scope to dip into the particulars of the archaeological record. To get a sense of the breadth and depth of Rees’ work we have a chat about:
Author of The Far Edges of the Known World: A New History of the Ancient Past, Owen Rees
Our music is composed by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman.
Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome
Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad
Dr G 0:33
and I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:50
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr G
Dr Rad 0:58
And I am Dr Rad
Dr G 1:00
And we are very excited to sit down today with Owen Rees to talk about his new book ‘The Far Edges of the Known World'. Even the title sounds very impressive. I'm like OoOoo. Owen Rees is an ancient historian. He held a Leverhulme early career fellowship at the University of Nottingham, and is a lecturer in applied humanities for Birmingham Newman University. He is the founder and lead editor of the website badancient.com which brings together specialists to fact check common claims. I'll say that again, which brings together specialists to fact check common claims made about the ancient world. We are absolutely thrilled to talk with Owen about his new book, ‘The Far Edges of the Known World, which is published by Bloomsbury Press. Welcome Owen.
Owen Rees 1:57
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Dr G 1:59
An absolute pleasure. So to get us softly into this topic, because I feel like this topic is actually huge, I'm wondering what sparked your fascination for this idea of borders and edges when it comes to the ancient world.
Owen Rees 2:16
Yeah, it's a valid question, because it's not really talked about a lot, or when it is talked about, it's often in terms of conflict. So especially in the Roman Empire, we think hard borders, conflict and wars generally. So I mean, put it simply, it bugs me that the ancient world is always done from cultural centers. So every time we talk about ancient history, we talk about Athens, we talk about Rome, Alexandria, places like this. And that's all fascinating and interesting stuff, but I'm always struck with the kind of question in my head of, well, what about everyone else? What's everyone else up to? And how do these highfalutin ideas that people are coming up with like Plato and the like. How does that play out for, shall we say, normal people around the world? So first of all, it was to kind of get away from the obvious stories and the obvious narratives of the ancient world, ones that you know, we've all read, listened to and watched and kind of grew up with. I suppose another aspect was I was I was really interested in the idea of the ancient world being the whole world. You know, we often talk about, we study the ancient world, we love the ancient world, but all we really talk about is the Mediterranean, or the Mediterranean basin, really. So, you know, Egypt, Italy, Greece, maybe a bit of Turkey
Dr G 3:39
Guilty as charged.
Owen Rees 3:41
Yeah, we all do it. We all do it. And I just, I wanted to move away from that. And I mean, ultimately, I think it also played into an obsession of mine, which is, I love underdogs. I've always loved underdog stories from, you know, sort of watching films growing up in England, you know, watching films like Zulu, and I find the Zulus much more interesting than than the British forces, you know, sort of watching westerns. And it was never the cowboys I was that interested in. My siblings used to always take the mick that I always supported the losing side, but I always just found their stories more interesting, and I found their cultures more interesting. So that's kind of like underpinning, shall we say, of what interested me in this. But otherwise it's from a historical point of view. I hate inconsistencies. And what you often find when you read about Roman culture, Roman law, Greek culture and Greek laws, is they stop applying the further away you get from Greece, from Rome. I mean, a classic example from the Roman period is the idea of the imperial army, in particular, soldiers. It's illegal for soldiers to marry, not allowed to marry, and this has influenced the way archeologists have studied numerous. Forts and numerous sites over the years. And if anyone had ever thought early on to look at places like Egypt, for instance, we have loads of evidence in the Greek language that Roman soldiers are married, and then it turns out they're just not married in the Latin language. So you get this lovely interplay of an accepted rule breaking and almost like, Okay, well, we can't officially say it, but of course you are. And as a result, like studies of Roman thoughts over the past 20 years have started realizing that perhaps you know, evidence of women or children in forts doesn't need to be explained with strange excuses. And actually, maybe they were supposed to be there.
Dr G 5:46
What. What are the women doing there?
Owen Rees 5:50
I know, what is this chaos?
Dr Rad 5:53
There's a keep out sign, very clearly on the door.
Owen Rees 5:59
So it was, yeah, it was just, I think looking at the board has just challenged a lot of what I grew up thinking I knew about the ancient world, what other people taught me about the ancient world. And I just found that really interesting. The way I often sell it to other people is from a more general point of view. If you look at the ancient world and only look at the center, you are basically committing the cardinal sin of a traveler who goes to London and thinks they've seen Great Britain, you know, goes to Sydney and so think they've seen Australia, and you just haven't. You've seen something amazing. You've seen something flamboyant and spectacular and culturally fascinating, but you have not seen everything, and you have not seen anything close to everything. And so that was kind of what inspired the idea of the book in the first place.
Dr G 6:49
Oh, that is really cool.
Dr Rad 6:50
It is. And so for people who would like to pick up a copy of your book, you're going to take them to places across Africa, the Caucasus, and Asia. But as Roman historians, we're very aware that there are the very serious limitations when it comes to the way that Roman perspectives can be imposed, and the kind of world that is created from Roman sources. So what were the challenges that you encountered when researching these edges of the world? And how did you tackle those challenges?
Owen Rees 7:21
Oh, there were quite a few. I'll be honest with you, I suppose the biggest. I'm a historian by background. So my main bread and butter are written sources, you know. So I think Herodotus, think Plutarch, you know, people like this. This is, this is where I spend my time. When you start going to the edges of the ancient world, there's a lot less of it, and those written sources are either less interested in what's going on at the edge or have a very skewed perspective of what's going on at the edge. So first thing I had to embrace very early on was that archeology was a much closer friend than sort of the standard historical text I'm used to working with. So that's the first thing, but the second thing, this kind of opens up opportunities. So we don't have large narratives from all these kind of sites. I There are no large narratives coming out of Ukraine in the ancient period that just aren't but what there is alongside the archeology in some of these sites are fascinating written sources that don't appear anywhere else. So oddly enough, whilst we we obsess over Greece and Rome, our best evidence, in terms of the amount of evidence and in terms of what it tells us about everyday life, comes in the Roman period from two places, really, to my mind, one is Vindolanda. So that's a Hadrian's Wall in the north of England, where we have surviving written tablets from a fort. So we have a remarkably large cache of letters, basically, and notes from a Roman fort telling us what's going in and out, telling us what's happening. It's really boring, but it's really fascinating at the same time. And that's what I love, because, you know, life isn't always exciting. So you know, there's lovely letters of people complaining they haven't been sent socks, and things like this. It's just amazing. If you haven't seen it, anyone listening, you gotta have a look. They're great fun. But the other site, well, the site I look at, but actually it's the entire region of the Faiyum region in Roman Egypt. So when Egypt is on Roman control, you've got the Faiyum Oasis, which is to the west of, or southwest of what is now modern Cairo. Amazing place to go. And we have just a remarkable amount of papyri. So you know, the written paper from Egypt just stored in people's houses whilst they kept them safe. So these are, like people's personal archives, really. So it's documents that they want to keep safe, things that are important to them. Some of them are like contracts. Some of them are personal letters between like themselves and their mother or their father, who might have died by that point. Some of them are just sort of family papers. So we've got all this amazing evidence just sitting there telling us about normal people, normal life, everyday life. So whilst I had to get away from this idea that history has to be grand narratives to write this book, what I get to really embrace is those small personal narratives and those little snapshots and stories of just normal people. And that's just something we don't really get to hear much about in the ancient world. But going back to, like your point on Roman writers and the world they're building us. This is such an important point, because often when they talk about the edge of the world, one the really vague, and this is infuriating. I had to, I had to work with a map illustrator, and they were like, you mentioned Ethiopia as a region. Where is it? And I was like, south in Libya. And they're like, Okay, so the country of Libya, no, Libya is a random continent. Kind of makes up most of Africa at this point, but doesn't include Egypt most of the time. And they're like, so where is Ethiopia in that? I'm like, to the south, like, where that's that's all they tell us. So, you know, you got the it's the same with you mentioned the Caucasus. The Greeks and Romans talk about Scythia, which is very vaguely north of the Black Sea, and to the east. And that's kind of it. It can be as big or as small as you want it to be, depending on what you're talking about and who you're talking who you're talking about. So they do talk about these things in general terms, because often what they're talking about is very, very far away land. So when they talk about skiffia, they mean very far away to the north and the east. When they talk about Libya, they mean very far away to the south. When they talk about Ethiopia, they talk about even further away to the south. India is my other favorite, because we think of India. India is a very clear place. The Romans, the Greeks, knew about India. They went to India. They traded with India. They must know what India is when they talk about it, and they do not. Sometimes, it includes Arabia the Arabian Gulf. Sometimes they're talking about much further east than India, you know, the unknown lands of Southeast Asia, Vietnam, maybe even China. Sometimes. So they're not always, they're not consistent in their terminology at all. And I suppose the final point, really, when dealing with this is Roman writers in particular, if they're talking about the borders, it's usually to make a point about something else. And so we're always stuck with that question, how accurate a reflection are we getting about the place they're talking about? Some of these things can be overcome with archeology. Some of these things can be overcome with other evidence. Some of it has to be left kind of open ended. Ovid is a good example of this, and his description of a town called Tomis, where we don't have loads of evidence about Tomis, but we know he's wrong, but how wrong we're not quite sure, but definitely incorrect.
Dr G 13:31
Yeah, I was going to say you've led me straight to this idea of Ovid's perception of Tomis on the Black Sea, where he gets exiled to because he's clearly not having a good time. He is most upset to be here, and he believes it's probably the worst place ever, at least that's the kind of impression you get from the letters that he writes back to the city, being like, please, please, please, guys, this exile needs to end. I cannot stand another minute here, but it seems to be at least in the way that you're describing it, is that maybe it's quite jarring for him because he doesn't get to live the life that he prefers or is used to anymore. It's not so much that he doesn't understand the place, it's just that it's not something he wants to experience. So I'm wondering like, is Ovid a bit emblematic for some of these problems we get with our bigger written sources when it comes to thinking about the edges of things?
Owen Rees 14:27
Yeah, I think is he is indicative of the issue I may so much so he bookends my book for a reason. He really sums up not only the problem we have with Roman writers, Greek writers, Egyptian all these different people. But also, I think he's indicative of the problem historians have where we're so stuck on focusing on what's not going on, or what it doesn't look like, much like he does, we kind of miss it for what it is. But Ovid's, Ovid's a fascinating guy. He comes off a bit badly in my book. I think I went for him a little bit because he's held up in this kind of canon of Roman writers, and he is a moany so and so. But I think you're right. I think what he's moaning about is things not as they are, but also it's because he wants to go home. So so much of his poetry, so much of his letters, are about convincing people to petition on his behalf, send me home from his exile. So he portrays it in the most horrific ways. And if you read this, you just think, why would anyone ever go there? It is a nasty place. It's constant war, constant freezing. They can't even grow grapes. They don't speak Greek properly, which is laughable, because it's a Greek city. You know, he's moaning about all these things, and it's just fantastic, is this idea of I'm too good for this place? That's kind of how he presents it. But on the same token, I'm not always 100% convinced. That he's reflect not just the reality of the town, but his own reality in that town. So for instance, we know he brags at one point of writing a poem in a local language. So we get this idea he is learning local languages. He doesn't need to know the local languages. Greek is a standard language. He learns like a Gatic language, but he's not in learning. He's mastered it enough to do his poetry. We know he serves in the militia. One of the things he moans about, they made me do military service, which I got out of him Rome. So there's no doubt he's actually getting quite involved in the community around him, but he will never let on these in any way enjoying it, or any way settling in. But the other thing it's the interesting one, something we get a lot at the borders when people from the center so these kind of figures go there is this idea of being forgotten, this idea of no one will know what's going on, because no one really understands the edges, and if I'm there, they'll forget me. And Ovid has this kind of paranoia that he'll be forgotten, and that mediocre poets in Rome will be remembered better than he will. And of course, that's we know in hindsight, that's not true at all. So his greatest fear of being left at the edge just doesn't come true in the slightest, if anything, his time in exile are, I mean, I think some of his best work, I don't think every academic would agree with me there, but they're certainly, historically, the most interesting pieces of work he does. So yeah, Ovid, absolutely, he is emblematic of a lot of the issues where we're seeing, but not just from the ancient world itself, but also from our own perspective.
Dr Rad 17:46
As podcasters from Sydney, we kind of get that feeling, always, you know, our timing is just always off. We're always, you know, in another day, in another time zone. It's,
Owen Rees 18:02
Yeah, but you'll never be forgotten. You know, remember that.
Dr G 18:05
That's the dream.
Dr Rad 18:07
We are writing the most epic podcast known to man, so… In scale, I mean in scale. So turning our attention away for a moment from the Romans and their world and their perspective, you also take the reader through some of the details of the borders that emerge in parallel to the cataracts along the Nile River in ancient Sudan. Can you take us through some of the details of the edges of the world as conceived in ancient Sudan?
Owen Rees 18:35
Yeah, it's an interesting one. So for the cataract. So we're talking about these kind of insurpassible parts of the Nile cataracts. So they're basically heavy rapids. There's boulders and stones. It's just sort of harder to get through. It's not just like a direct route, shall we say. And further south from these cataracts, you enter what's generally thought of as Nubia, the lands of Nubia and during, I mean, this is like second millennium, well out of our wheelhouse for Greek and Roman historians. But second millennium BCE, where Egypt, you know, has built its pyramids, have all this beautiful monuments, and the pharaohs have well and truly established themselves on the throne. But to the south, in Nubia, we have a another kingdom called the Kushite kingdom, who are growing a fascinating place. The archeology of this area and this sort of Kingdom and the towns they build are absolutely phenomenal, but like, there's no written texts to work with. So unfortunately, it's one of the kind of curses of living at the edge. Your story is told by your enemies, and Egypt is the the writer of the history of the Kush. To put this in context, they generally refer to the Kush as the ‘wretched Kush'. That's their name for them. So that kind of gives you an idea of the storyline we're getting. So Egypt keeps trying to push its influence further and further south, moving up the Nile, and it does this by building a series of forts along the cataracts, really. I mean, you can see this as expansion. You can see this is imperialist expansion. That's certainly what it becomes later in the New Kingdom. But at this point, I'll often visualize this as almost creating a buffer zone. So they're trying to create an area where the Kush are pastoralist people by origin. Even though they're now building their towns and stuff, they still have sort of this semi-nomadic underpinning to their life. So movement around is quite a common thing, and sedentary cultures, urbanized cultures, generally, do not like nomadism because it doesn't abide by the rules of borders and things like that still true to this day, let's be honest. So they build these forts, and they create this kind of middle ground within it. And what I found fascinating about this is we have a perfect example of stretch of land where the two cultures kind of mash and mesh and intermingle. And rather than look at the Egyptians from their perspective further north, and rather look at the Kush from their perspective further south, I was fascinated by what was going on here, in this in this middle ground, in this buffer zone, and ultimately what we get is Egyptian garrisons, settling, raising families. And kind of setting themselves up in just normal life. It's just normal garrison life. It's not always very exciting. There's generally a lot of raiders, bandits, but also just trade. So it's that, it's that snapshot of the everyday, which I love. But we also get some lovely characters and some lovely events for anyone who's, if you fans of ‘The Mummy'?
Dr G 22:09
Ooo yeah
Dr Rad 22:09
Ah yes
Owen Rees 22:11
Yes, what do you take me for? But also, I've just, I've just got into Assassin's Creed Origins, so I'm obssessed at the moment with the Medjay
Dr G 22:21
Yeah, beautiful. I love that game.
Owen Rees 22:23
Yeah, brilliant game. And they're brilliant characters in ‘The Mummy', where the Medjay first kind of appear at this border as a group. Historians aren't 100% sure who they are in terms of ethnicity, but the general consensus at the moment is that they are one of the nomadic Nubian groups floating about in this region, in this area. So they're not Kush, and they're not Egyptian, they're this nomadic group, or one of many nomadic groups, and they're called the Medjay, and they turn up in the the fort records, basically, of people moving about, and this is where we first start to see them used as like a rudimentary police force. And to give you an idea of the kind of complexities of what's going on and the lack of simplicity of us versus them, the Medjay who form part of this nomadic Nubian group are often policing other nomadic Nubian groups in the area. So they're like enforcing Egyptian rules on it, because ultimately the fort brings food, it brings money, well, it brings support, it brings income of some sort. And so it makes more sense for them to look to the Egyptians for basically work. So we get individuals like this, but also we see in the force themselves. We mentioned them earlier with the Roman forts, but we get these, these people. They're called women
Dr G 23:54
What?
Owen Rees 23:55
And they do, they do exist in history.
Dr G 23:57
Again? What's going on?
Dr Rad 23:59
Just break this down for a second. Wo-men. I think I might have heard of them, yeah.
Owen Rees 24:05
Have you heard of them? My academic background is military history, and you'd be amazed. Well, you won't be amazed how many books to where they don't appear.
Dr G 24:16
It's incredible.
Dr Rad 24:17
We sympathize, we sympathize, yeah.
Owen Rees 24:19
And at the forts, what we see is Nubian women, even possibly Kush women, entering the forts and living in the homes of Egyptian soldiers and men. There's no reason to not presume that they've actually intermarried. So again, what we see, you know, away from the narratives of the Egyptians, where there's ‘wretched Kush' and they can't be trusted in the region, and they should all be killed because they're animals, we see the borders soldiers who are supposed to be kind of enforcing that and epitomizing that ideology, marrying them, living with them, having kids with them. And I just, I just find that amazing. I find it beautiful. I just think it's, it's a fascinating inversion of what we expect.
Dr Rad 25:07
It's almost as though when people actually get to know each other instead of believing what they're told. They actually find that humans are quite similar and they can get along with,
Owen Rees 25:22
I mean, you said it not me. I don't want to get in trouble.
Dr Rad 25:25
These are the kind of mind blowing ideas that people come to the Partial Historians for, you know,
Owen Rees 25:30
This is it
Dr G 25:32
Oh, boy.
Owen Rees 25:34
This is it. This is beautiful stuff. It is beautiful stuff, um, but like, within the sort of historical narrative. I mean, ultimately, Egypt goes through its own periods of chaos. And during that chaos, we see the borders fluctuation. So during one of those periods of chaos where Egypt has basically an incursion from the north, the Kush push further north and actually take control of a lot of these fortifications.
Dr G 26:00
Uh oh
Owen Rees 26:01
Now, yeah. To put this in kind of perspective, these forts are enormous, like they're absolutely amazing in size, in scale. I mean, really, we see nothing like it in the ancient world until, like the Roman structures, 1000s of years later, in terms of fortifications on the borders, and in terms of the investment that goes into it, there's nothing quite like them, but the Kush basically walk into them, because the Egyptians have to focus on what's going on further north. And again, you're like, Okay, so the Kush have pushed north taking control. This is going to be a bloodbath. Are they even going to keep the forts. What's going to go on? There is no archeological evidence that there is any destruction.
Dr G 26:47
Wow
Owen Rees 26:48
At all. So it very much creates this impression they just kind of walk in. And we even have examples of Egyptians at the forts who keep their jobs.
Dr G 26:59
What?
Dr Rad 27:01
Now that's the kind of job security that I envy.
Owen Rees 27:05
Exactly, exactly. I mean, from a pragmatic point of view, if you've got an infrastructure in place and they're happy to stay in place, there's no need to change it. So you know, as long as they're not leaving and they're not constantly out to try and get you and to try and overthrow you. Why wouldn't you keep them in place?
Dr Rad 27:22
Is Elon Musk listening?
Owen Rees 27:22
You're gonna get me in a lot of trouble! So, yeah, so we, so what we basically see is people go right, like my dad was here under the Pharaoh. I'm now here under the Kush happy days. Let's just keep going. Because ultimately, what happens, this is what I love about the borders. What happens at the border is that's life. Life isn't what happens to the south or to the north. Life is what's going on there and then. And you know, they're not going to uproot themselves if they've got family there, if they've got lineage there. If they you know, they've been there six, seven generations. This is their home. This is their homeland. It's at that point where you see where loyalties really lie. Now, that's not true of all the sites I talk about in my book, and that in itself, is interesting because it gives you an idea of how, I don't know how deep people will put their roots when they come to the edge, you know, how do they see their time there? But at the fault, we see quite these kind of thoughts. We see quite clearly people that's home. So, you know, why would they leave just because another king is asking for tax rather than the previous king who was asking for tax? You know, it's that kind of perspective. So I think that was it really. I wanted this kind of fortification, boundary, these barriers. I wanted to look at it rather than through a lens of conflict and through a lens of imperial or political power. I wanted to see it through everyday life. I wanted to see it as normal and just how life went on even in places like this.
Dr G 29:04
I love this sense of pragmatism about daily life that is coming through and is a real thread through this whole book, actually, because it's kind of like, what sort of decisions do you make when you're not the powerful person, when you're not the person writing the laws? And you find yourself, you know, well, I've been sent to this for it, and I guess I'll figure out life from here. And, you know, opportunities come along, you make some friends, you meet a girl, it's kind of nice, and all of a sudden your family's been there for like, two or three generations, and you're like, Oh, it's good here. You know, we're these kind of people now.
Dr Rad 29:38
I think it also speaks to the universal human hatred of moving.
Dr G 29:45
There's nothing worse than having to pack up all those boxes.
Dr Rad 29:49
I hate it, and I'm glad to know that people in the ancient world hated it too.
Owen Rees 29:56
Well. There we go. They are just like us,
Dr G 29:58
So similar. And you touched on this idea of language with this idea of the ‘wretched Kushite', and I think this leads us really nicely into thinking about these really loaded terms that we tend to get when we think about the center versus the edge, and that idea of the ‘civilized' center and the ‘barbarian' edges. And these sorts of terms are hugely problematic, obviously been repurposed in terrible ways throughout all of human history, even recently. And I'm interested in how a study like yours can help us combat this sort of us versus them dichotomy that comes through in that kind of language use?
Owen Rees 30:41
Yeah, I think it ultimately, it rips it apart. Absolutely rips it apart. It shows it for what it is, which is a rhetoric of privilege, basically from the center, because they can think like that, because the only I mean classics, classical, Athens for fifth, fourth century. Athens, a good example of this, if you are Plato, living in, you know, walking around, Athens the only barbarian, one of the better word, the only foreigner you will meet is predominantly either a trader or an enslaved person. That's pretty much it. So you can have these kind of views, you know, of foreign peoples, because it doesn't really affect you day to day. But when you look to the edges, where, you know, like we were talking about you, you end up marrying these people. You end up living with these people. These people become your friends. These people become your colleagues. These people become your network for trade. You just can't you just can't think like that, or you can't internalize all those beliefs of well, you can definitely internalize your belief of your own superiority, but you can't really internalize the belief of their innate inferiority in every way. So the idea that the barbarian person is intellectually inferior, morally inferior in just every single possible way, it just doesn't make day to day feasible. So the distinction very much kind of falls apart when they live side by side. So we we see this in particular in the book or two sections on Greece, the Greek world and the Roman world. And it just falls apart time and again as you look at it. I mean, ultimately, barbarianism as a construct and civilization as an idea are usually. They usually appear in the ancient world to justify something or to garner support for something. So think about, you know, the anti-Gaul rhetoric just before Caesar's invasion. Think of the anti-Persian rhetoric after the Persian Wars in classical Athens. It's all to justify things that are either happening or are going to happen or have happened. So you've got to see it for the ideological rhetoric is what I find quite interesting about it is, if you, if you take it at face value, it kind of counters a lot of stories we tell ourselves about our own history, maybe not Australia.
Dr G 33:11
Oh, I think definitely Australia.
Dr Rad 33:13
Oh I don't know about that
Owen Rees 33:15
I'll leave that with you, but a classic one in Britain. So British British history. One of the key parts is the Roman invasion. We don't talk about ourselves as an invaded imperial opponent. We don't talk about stuff like that. So what we inherit, in terms of the ancient history from Roman period, is that we take the role of the Romans, which is quite odd when you think about it, because we were not the Romans.
Dr G 33:49
I don't want to say that this is a classic English move, but
Owen Rees 33:55
It definitely is. But what we don't talk about, for instance, and I love this, doing the research for the book is just how much Britain is a backwater of the ancient world, just how looked down on, just how how much it is looked down on, like to the point where, before the Roman expansion, really, the Greeks aren't even convinced it's real, because it just sounds so horrific.
Dr Rad 34:19
It rains ALL the time
Owen Rees 34:24
I know, and it's not wrong, so we know that. But the other thing is, ultimately, it's the edge of the world. I mean, even the early Roman, sort of early Roman, imperial writers talk about it as literally, the edge of the world. So it gets to this point where, okay, we accept it probably is real. But God, no human would live any further than that. And it's just, it's just amazing. So you know, what we inherit as British people is this story from the Roman perspective, about Roman power. What we don't inherit is the Roman perspective on Britain itself, which is like this is not a very great place to be, very great place to be. And I just love that. I love that I love not only the history of the ancient world, but also how the ancient world is translated into the modern day, and what bits of it we like to choose and what bits of it we like to ignore. But in terms of the barbarian civilization, yes, I mean, the ancient world is the foundation of it. To this day, you've kind of alluded to it already. I've said it outright. Britain has, for a long time considered itself the inheritor of the Roman Empire. You know, if it's not Britain, it's Napoleon. If it's not Napoleon, and it's bloody the Third Reich. Everyone wants to be the Roman Empire. Everyone wants to be the harbinger of civilization, shall we say, and make themselves the inheritor of what they consider the lineage of civilization. And when you look at the edge of the world, you just kind of see how ridiculous an idea that really is.
Dr Rad 36:00
I think somebody needs to Hollywood that, because I don't know if you noticed, but the Romans always have British accents.
Dr G 36:10
This does – as a side note – this does weird out my Italian husband, he cannot watch HBO's Rome because he is thoroughly baffled by the representation of Romanness through the English accent.
Owen Rees 36:24
Well, did you see the whole complaint about Denzel Washington and Gladiator 2, having basically the New York accent, I think it's the New York accent
Dr Rad 36:33
I think he talks like Denzel
Owen Rees 36:36
Yeah he does, it's his voice. And I just love it, because people are like, this is the wrong accent. And everyone's like, you mean British, don't you? You mean he hasn't got a British accent, which is just ridiculous. Yeah, fair point.
Dr Rad 36:48
Yeah, well, look, you know, I have to defend it, because that's what Kirk Douglas was going for with his whole casting thing. He had real issues with certain people he wanted to cast you didn't have the right accent. He was like, Oh, the British versus American accent. It's so important, it must be preserved at all costs, regardless of acting ability. Moving on, though, we really loved the chapter on the city of Olbia, which was located in what is now Ukraine. Olbia draws influences from many peoples, and the result is a layered culture. Can you take us through some of the key moments in olbia's ancient history as a city at the edges?
Owen Rees 37:30
Me, yeah, so we're looking at, literally at the very edge of what is now Crimea, and it's set up as a marketing a market city, basically, to kind of capitalize on the trade of the Black Sea and to try and push Greek trade further north into what is Scythia. So the land of the Scythians, this elusive conglomeration of various nomadic, semi-nomadic and static groups that the Greeks aren't 100% sure who they are. And Olbia goes through – like the history of Olbia is just fascinating. I fell in love with the city whilst writing about it, because, basically: it sets itself up, has to deal with the Persian expansion in the region, survives the Persian Wars, but we don't know how, in what way. We don't know if it sides with the Persians. We don't, we don't know what it did to get by. It then has to deal with ancient Athens expansion in the Black Sea. That's when the city becomes democratic, because Athens doesn't really give you a choice with this. It then basically, can't we cope with being democratic? So it relies a lot on the patronage of rich individuals. It then has to deal with the expansion of Alexander, Alexander the Great, the Macedonians. It survives that it looks to Scythian kings for one of a better term for support and for protection over time. But in the end, it's abandoned for a period. We're not a hundred percent sure why. It just kind of stops being a useful place to be. Too much conflict in the area is not worthwhile. And then, interestingly, some of the Scythian groups actually implore Greeks to come back and re establish it. So Olbia is re established, and that's when we get the Romans interacting with it. And there's a beautiful moment where one of our Roman writers is complaining because he goes there meets a Greek guy, young lad who's Greek, is very bad, apparently, and is dressed like a Scythian which is a fascinating moment, because the Scythians wear the most effeminate of clothing known to the ancient Mediterranean.
Dr Rad 39:51
Is it pants?
Owen Rees 39:52
It is pants, it is trousers, and he's described wearing them. He also described as holding a cavalryman's sword as well. Very unusual, very unexpected, and it's just the perfect encapsulation at Olbia of what's going on, which is Greek people clinging to Greek identity, but adapting and embracing Scythian or local traditions as well. And we see this in a few ways. So we see in the coinage. Coins are not always the most exciting of things, but they tell us a lot. And at Olbia, they tell us an amazing story where the first coins we see at Olbia aren't round coins like drachma and things like that. They're actually shaped like arrowheads and dolphins. There's a lot of speculation as to why it might be related to cult of Apollo. These are two symbols of Apollo in the region, but there are also two symbols that relate closely with the culture of the non Greeks in the region. Let's call them Scythians, who put a lot of stock in archery as their sort of military prowess. And the dolphins is a local symbol because of the population in the Black Sea. So there is an argument that's been made that this is possibly evidence of them trying to get local groups to embrace a financial system that they don't have. So Olbia, the Greeks at Olbia are creating a monetary system that they can relate to and use in some way, which in itself, is interesting. So by the time we get proper coinage, so the kind of round drachma in Olbia, what we see are symbols that relate to Scythian culture. So we see a distinctive bow. We see a distinctive bow case imprinted on the coins. We also see a particular axe, the sagarius, which is not Greek. The Greeks are not interested in it. This is about this is clearly about giving a iconographic marker, an image that the Scythian groups or the local groups in the area understand what it is. And I just find that amazing. And it kind of feeds into something Herodotus, so the father of history tells us about the region and about the city. He describes a group living near Olbia. In his list of Scythians, he gives a long list of different Scythian groups, and in it, there's one which he describes as Greek-Scythians, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you think of it through the perspective of barbarians and Greeks and separations. So what does he actually mean about this? And so it was, you know, maybe they're living more of a sedentary agricultural life, maybe saying, well, that's going on, but maybe it's because Greece and Scythians are actually intermingling and living together and marrying and intermarrying. And this is actually supported by a later inscription at Olbia, which talks about a group called the ‘mixellenes', literally the half Greeks who live just outside of Obia. So we have this kind of archeological verification, corroboration, really, of what Herodotus is talking about, yes, Greeks and Scythians. This isn't pie in the sky hippy nonsense. These people are actually living together, marrying, intermarrying, raising families like this is reality. This is what's going on. And to kind of come back to both your points earlier, this contrast this with the center to this point is Athens. In Athens fifth century, fourth century. Plato has a little mini rant in one of his works about intermarriage, and he refers to a group called the ‘mixebarbaroi'. So the half barbarians, and I think this perfectly encapsulates the difference between the center and the edge. So in the center, if you intermarry with foreign peoples, you're a half barbarian. At the edge, if you're intermarry with other people, you're half Greek. Don't get me wrong, you're still not Greek, you're still not quite us, but it just gives you that inverted perspective that you see at the edge. If we only listen to Plato, you would think that was all there was.
Dr G 43:52
I do like this idea that not only is there sort of, like fine, sort of definitions within this, because that speaks to like people trying to like, find their identity and position themselves in particular ways. And Herodotus seems to be picking up on that as well. But you've mentioned a couple of times now that when we get out into this sort of really eastern section, that there is a sense from people from the center that the Greek is spoken differently, for sure, and the idea that the accent is shifting, and that maybe the language is bringing in loan words and things like this from the surrounding areas. And it's not that they're not speaking Greek, but it's not, it's not the Greek of the center, for sure, by the sounds of it. And to tie this back into thinking about your own journey as an author, this book takes us through heaps and heaps of places, and I feel like the thing that you would want to do to prepare to write for this book is to do a lot of travel and get to these edges and really, really come to grips with it from in the topographical sense, you know, just feel what it's like to be in these places as well, because that would also decenter you as an author from your position in your natural center. And I'm interested in the sort of challenges that you have found in writing this book when it comes to that kind of thing.
Owen Rees 45:22
Yeah, this book was not pitched at a good time for what I wanted to do, because you're right, I had, I had real plans to be a jet setting historian. I was going to live my dream since I was a kid. I was going to go around the world, go to all the ancient sites and just write stories about them. It was going to be amazing. The first planned trip I had. So I've got chapter on ancient Vietnam, and I was like, It's the one place I've never been. I've never been anywhere like it. I've got to get to Vietnam. And I planned out the entire trip, and then the COVID lockdowns happened.
Dr G 45:54
Noo
Owen Rees 45:56
Yeah. So that was great. So that scuppered that plan. It scuppered my plans to go to Ethiopia. It scuppered my plans to go to Morocco. I had ambitions, and every time lockdown was lifted, I was like, Okay, I probably won't get to Vietnam. Now, let's try Ethiopia. Okay, next lockdown. I won't get to Ethiopic Morocco. That's just down the road a bit. Let's try that next lockdown occurrence. By the time all restrictions were lifted, my deadlines were looming, so I had to readdress my expectations and my ambitions. So I was like, fair enough. I won't be able to get to that. I've got to look but I've got to look nearer to home to get to some of these sites. I'll go to Ukraine. I've got two chapters in the book. I'll go to Ukraine. As I came up with that plan, Putin, tanks crossed the border. So that's scuppered that plan. Another idea was I'll get to Israel. That was a terrible idea, Sudan, that was never going to start. Basically everywhere I wanted to go, either terrible things that were happening started happening, or, in hindsight, went on to happen. So that was that was a bit of a problem.
Dr G 47:15
Sounds like you're a powerful figure, Owen on world history and current affairs.
Speaker 1 47:21
You don't want to appear in my books, but I'll tell you that. Tou don't, you don't want to be named in my books.
Dr Rad 47:25
It seems like not a coincidence that all these places you wanted to go are still areas where sometimes you can't.
Owen Rees 47:35
Yeah, there is something to be said for the edges of the world haven't changed that much in our own perspective, and that in itself, is very interesting, and we do not have enough time to explore that one. But yeah, it is interesting just how many of these places are still considered these sort of no go places or problematic places or difficult places, rightly or wrongly, they still hold these reputations. And as you can kind of see, some of these reputations go back 1000s of years. I mean, to get around it, I ended up having to rely on a massive network of historians around the world, archeologists around the world, many of whom I've never met, never spoken to. And bless them, they were so supportive and so helpful, because, yeah, we were all in the same boat. Anyone who wanted to write about any of these places, we were in the same boat. We couldn't travel. So as a result, I was able to tap into that and be sort of fed and guided to a lot of the cutting edge research. So a lot of academics were bored during lockdown, and so anyone who spoke to them about their own work got very excited. And so there was a lot of zoom calls because they wanted to talk to anyone, and they were like, have a look at this draft that I'm publishing in two years time. Have a look at this draft of stuff I've just found when I was last in Vietnam and all this kind of stuff. So the book, one of the things I liked about putting this book together was it was fed by a lot of the very, very current research coming out. And from my perspective, from your perspective, and all the amazing work you do, I think part of our job is to kind of translate that for the public and feed it to them in some way. So I love the idea that we're not, you know, I'm not feeding them a narrative that's been around for 10, 15, years in academia. Some academics will read some of this stuff and not know that's been discovered yet, not know it's come out, which is just beautiful, because I think the public should be, you know, as much of the forefront as everyone else.
Dr Rad 49:38
Absolutely. And that segues nicely into a question we thought we used to sort of wrap things up, which is, what questions or ideas would you like to leave listeners with when it comes to them thinking about the boundaries and the edges of the world?
Owen Rees 49:57
I suppose I'd love for you to be left with the same question that started the book. I don't like to think I've answered it, because it was an open ended question, but ultimately, my first question when it came to this book was, okay, we know Greece, we know Rome. What else is going on? So I talk about, I think it's 13 sites around the ancient world. I could have picked a completely different 13. And I just, if this book is to inspire anything, I want it to inspire inquisitiveness. There are lots of works, lots of podcasts, lots of documentaries about these other places. They're just not the big, famous ones that everyone's kind of reading and watching and listening to. So kind of, you know, follow your inquisitiveness, because ultimately, that's what history is. I mean, history literally means inquiry. It is to be inquisitive. It's not to tell narratives and have answers. It's to ask questions and to keep exploring. And that includes people who just love history. You know, it's not just academics and scholars. So I suppose the other thing, which I'm glad you two picked up on as well, so it's we read a lot about ideas in Rome, in Egypt and Greece and all these places. Lot of ideas. How does that play out in reality? How does it play out in the other sides of the world? You know, it's all well and good thinking. You know, what life is like in London? What's it like in rural Scotland? You know, as for the British example. So kind of, yeah, follow your own interests, follow your own inquisitiveness, follow your own questions. And I suppose the final thing for this, and we kind of touched on it at the end. Does any of this stuff sound familiar? You know, we're talking about life at the edge. We're talking about all these regions. We're talking about all these regions. We're talking about conflict, but we're talking about fear of foreigners, which is very easy to say when we live in the urban center, fear of migration, fear of movement of peoples, fear of nomadism. In Britain, we one of our most persecuted ethnic groups, or sort of ethnic minority groups, are the Gypsy, Romany and traveler community, the antithesis of sedentary life, constant movement. You know, we can get very focused on why people don't like them right now, but actually, are we hearing a lot of the same themes, a lot of the same ideas from 2000 plus? I mean, even easier 4000 years ago, are we just rehashing the same fears and the same concerns, and when we start to realize why they did it in the ancient world, you can then start to ask questions of rule. Is that why we're doing it now? You know, ancient history has a currency in the modern world. It has a pertinence in the modern world. And I think books like this kind of encourage us to ask those questions and to look a little deeper at our own, our own perspectives, as you both kind of rightly pointed out with me.
Dr Rad 52:50
No, well, I mean, I think this is the thing in that we've talking talking a lot about barbarism and civilization and those sorts of ideas as teachers of ancient history, I'm sure we've all encountered I know I have plenty of students who look at the past and say, Oh, how ridiculous they were. So backwards. We've got all the answers now, and I constantly have to ask them now. I'm like, Okay, if we have all the answers, then why is it this time period that's facing an existential crisis in the form of climate change, which people are still actually taking the time to argue about. I mean, do we have all the answers? If we do, I'd love to have a look at them.
Dr G 53:32
Please show me that book.
Dr Rad 53:33
Yeah, exactly. So when people, when people do, say to you, when they encounter something that's very strange about the ancient past, obviously, there's nothing wrong with laughing at the way that humans behave at any time period or in any place. But it is that idea that a lot of people have that now is the best and the past has to be there for the worst, so…
Owen Rees 53:53
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the other thing, I suppose, one of the other drivers of this book, so you mentioned in my introduction, my lovely introduction, by the way, appreciated that where I run this website, badancient which is website dedicated to kind of debunking a lot of misconceptions about the ancient world. Now this isn't just pyramids being built by aliens and things like that. It's also perspectives. So we get asked questions from not a naive perspective, not even an ill informed perspective, but a narrow perspective. And the answer isn't that you're wrong about a question about Roman culture or Egyptian life or anything. It's not that you're wrong, but it's that you're only giving an answer based on life for 5% of the people. A classic example would be if you look at the Egyptian evidence, I mentioned in Roman Egypt all these amazing papyrus papyrological evidence we have. We've got a lot of it, which shows independent women living normal independent women lives. But you know, it's the classic, isn't it? If you pick up any ancient history. Book about Greece, Rome, Egypt, anything like that, you'll generally get this impression that women may stay at home, women have no autonomy, women have no authority, and there is some truth to bits of that, but we shouldn't limit their potential in our own storytelling of them and our own narrative of them when the evidence shows us differently. So in there's a lovely village called Karanis, which is a very poor village in Faiyum in Roman Egypt. And we have evidence of women running businesses. We have evidence of women living entirely independent of men. In one of the census records, we have all female households. So Roman history tells us there has to be a male guardian at all times. It has to be a son, if it's not a father, if it's not a husband, but we have census records. Well, that's just not true. There are still legal issues. They have to officially have a guardian. But that doesn't look the same in normal life. You know, it's a paperwork issue rather than an everyday issue.
Dr G 55:58
That's fine, you make a statue, you call it a dude, and you'll be like, that's the man, don't worry about that.
Dr Rad 56:03
I'm thrilled to hear that Destiny's Child would have been very at home in this place.
Owen Rees 56:11
So yeah, so it's – completely lost your train of thought – But ultimately, this is this is it. So when we have our laughing moments in the classroom or in conversations about the ancient world ago. They're very backwards, they're very this, they're very that. Yes, we got to ask questions about ourself. Yes, we can ask questions about how different are we really with a lot of these topics. But the other question is always worth asking, which is, well, how much of that is just an elite male perspective of what they think life should be like. Because on the edge of the world, evidence tells us differently.
Dr Rad 56:45
Yeah. I mean, if we had only left behind the blog of someone who was part of, like, a, you know, men's rights group, and that was it for for you know, a lot of civilization, I think our perspective on what was happening now would be quite different.
Owen Rees 57:02
Yeah, I love the idea that Aristotle was just a blogger, really angry blogger, in the basement of his mom's house,
Dr Rad 57:10
and that Pliny the Elder was just a kook.
Owen Rees 57:14
No one took him seriously.
Dr G 57:16
He was all over the trivial details, that's for sure.
Owen Rees 57:21
That's right, it belongs on Reddit.
Dr G 57:24
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Owen, this has been a real treat, and I'm very excited for people to get your book ‘The Far Edges of the Known World' into their hands and to get their eyeballs on the page and to do as much exploration of this kind of topic as they can, because there is so much fun to be had. I think, in coming to grips with like, what is life actually like when we don't just read elite men.
Owen Rees 57:59
There's the tagline, yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this.
Dr G 58:12
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes over at partialhistorians.com. We offer a huge thank you to you, if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We're on Ko-Fi for one off or ongoing donations, or Patreon, of course. Our latest book, ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire', is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don't want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome's glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire'.
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396 BCE is finally here! Rome and Veii have been locked in a competition for space and resources for quite some time and it seems like the tide is about to turn. The year 396 BCE is perhaps one of the most significant years for Rome’s history in the early republic. Given the events at play, this episode is considering how the year begins and it might not be quite the thrills you might expect…
Episode 158 – The Fall of Veii – Part I
The situation with Roman magistrates in 396 BCE is quite complicated. We spend some time considering some of the challenges we face with the evidence. There seems to have been some problems with the military tribunes which leads to a changing of the guard. There also seems to be great fondness for the plebeian military tribune with consular power, Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, but is he really fit for public duties? We consider the details.
While Livy is providing plenty of narrative material for 396 BCE, every other ancient source seems only interested in some of the big ticket events and not the finer details of family politics in Rome. How can we reconcile these different accounts? We’ll try our best!
Rome gets off to a bad start in 396 BCE with a botched Roman ambush led by Genucius and Titinius. After waiting so long with the siege business, it seems a couple of the military tribunes with consular power decide that a little bit of action might be preferable. But things do not go according to plan… it’s only a matter of time for panic to set in among the citizens.
Our music is composed by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Additional sound effects from the BBC Sound Library,
Partial Reconstruction of a Temple at Veii – Photo credit to ArtSupp.
Lighted edited for our wonderful Australian accents.
Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad
Dr G 0:33
And I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad
Dr G 1:05
and I am Dr G and I am so excited for this episode, because we are hitting a bonanza of a year. It is 396 BCE and oh boy. After a long time of not a lot happening, except people sitting around in a siege. I think something might be about to happen, Dr Rad.
Dr Rad 1:26
I think you might be right. Dr G, oh, it's been 10 long, wintry years.
Dr G 1:31
Yeah, look, I've grown a whole fur coat in that period of time, and it's not going away.
Dr Rad 1:38
Oh, Dr G, this is a big year. And you know, I was saying to you the other day off mic, that it feels a bit like our podcast journey sometimes oddly mirrors that of ancient Rome, because during the early republic, due to locations of recordings being switched around and issues with microphones, etc, etc, we had some ups and downs in terms of our experimentation with the show, and I feel like we've got it all sorted out just in time for 396 which you could kind of see as one of the most important years in early Republican history, I think.
Dr G 2:16
This is a massive time, so we're building the hype, and I don't think that this is something that we're over hyping at all. This is actually going to be an exceptional time in Rome's history, and the Romans know it as well. Just to put that out there, maybe a little bit too much, they are well aware, and when they write their histories about this time period, there is a great consistency to the sorts of things that they talk about. So I'm looking forward to delving into that. But perhaps we should do a bit of a where are we at recap, before we dive in.
Dr Rad 2:54
You read my mind, I was going to say I know we did talk. I know that every time Veii has come up, we have talked about the relationship between Rome and Veii, but this is the last time that we're probably going to really need to do this, and it is the end of the big conflict, the big feud. So I do think a recap is in order.
Dr G 3:17
Veii? Who are you and why do you exist?
Dr Rad 3:22
Why are you so far south? Why can't you be further north, like all the rest of the Etruscan cities?
Dr G 3:27
Well, the thing about Eturia as a kind of a group of people is that they used to be much further south than they appear to be by the time we get into Roman history proper. So as far as we're aware, there's good evidence for the Villanovan culture, which is the precursor to Etruscan culture. Archeologically, as far down as Campania, which is, you know, the Amalfi Coast, Naples, Positano, Pompeii, Herculaneum…
Dr Rad 3:57
All the gorgeous places to go on holiday.
Dr G 3:59
Exactly. And so Etruria actually extended right through the region where Rome has sort of popped up like a little city state mushroom. And now we're dealing with what is a legacy of kind of a fallout of many centuries of Etruscan retreat out of the south and the more substantial investment that they've had in their northern places of influence, so all the way up to what is now modern Milan, for instance.
Dr Rad 4:30
Yes, this is true, and we have seen some really interesting dynamics between the Etruscans and the Romans over the centuries. If we go back to our beloved regal period, Dr G, although we don't know exactly what was going on with those last few things, with those last few kings.
Dr G 4:48
Oh, those guys
Dr Rad 4:49
Yeah, those guys, those things, yeah, those things, the kings, we certainly know that there's obviously an interesting relationship between Etruria and Rome at that time period. Was it an invasion? Was it a hostile takeover? Did the Romans welcome them with open arms? We'll never know.
Dr G 5:11
But there's certainly lots of parallels in terms of the cultural exchange that seems to have gone on between early Romans and the Etruscans, and the fact that this rivalry between Rome and Veii has taken the shape that it has is mostly to do with their proximity to each other and the competition for local resources. So one of the things that has been a source of conflict is control of the salt pans at Ostia as the river hits the Mediterranean Sea, there's been competition about that they used to control it. Rome eventually seems to have taken over. Veii is pretty unhappy about that. And then we do see increasing violence across the fifth century BCE, where the archeology suggests that there is ongoing raiding across both sides, and a lot of that agricultural land that sits in between these two places, which are a mere few kilometers away from each other, has produced this sort of escalation in violence across the century. And now here we are at the moment of a siege, which has been taking place for years now. Rome's been sitting outside the gates of a being like hand over the keys, and the Etruscans inside. They are like, Not on your life.
Dr Rad 6:33
Well, this is the thing ,Veii is fairly well positioned in terms of the you know, this speaks to the fact that the Romans couldn't just waltz in and take it. And so there's probably no doubt that there was really a lengthy siege between Rome and Veii at this moment. However, was it a neat little 10 years as Livy wants us to think, Dr G?
Dr G 6:57
Well, I think that's debatable. There's obviously a lot of incentive to draw that Trojan War comparison that I think Livy explicitly references as well at some point. So, yeah, good times for the Romans.
Dr Rad 7:13
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So there's some questions about the exact length of this siege, but a lengthy siege, I think would be an order, given how well positioned Veii is, and we have seen conflict throughout the early republic with Veii, Dr G, just a quick reminder of some of the biggest hits.
Dr G 7:33
Yes, please.
Dr Rad 7:34
483 to 474. That's when we had the first conflict between Rome and Veii. And the Romans weren't always beaten, but that was, of course, the time period where there was a fairly significant defeat with the fabulous Fabians, where we had a family that was almost entirely wiped out when they tried to take on they on behalf of Rome.
Dr G 8:00
Yeah, so we get this sense that we've got elite families acting as local war bands in the region, and presumably they is touching on Fabian interests in the area. But Cremera is a sad day for the Fabians. And fabulous or not, they mostly don't make it through.
Dr Rad 8:21
Exactly. So doesn't end that well for Rome on that particular point, because that becomes a pretty infamous moment in Roman history. However, when we get to the 430s we have another conflict with Veii, and this, of course, involves the possession of Fidenae, which is tossed backwards and forwards between Roman ve throughout the years. And this is where we get the murder of those Roman ambassadors at Veii. And then in the conflict that ensued, we see the king of Veii, Lars Tolumnius, slain by Cossus.
Dr G 8:58
Stabbed right through the groin. Yeah, what a time to be alive. So Fidenae, as far as we understand it from the archeological record, seems to also have been a mostly Etruscan populated area. So Rome has this real incentive as a sort of buffer zone, to take Fidenae, try to re populate it with Romans, colonialism, colonialism… and to create that sort of buffer point for themselves so that they can easily move forward towards they so the competition is really hotting up between these two by the time we get to what happens with Fidenae, and then also the devastation of they losing a king. And this feeds into a broader understanding of how are the Etruscans running themselves. And one of the narrative features of Rome's conversation about the Etruscans is that the Etruscans have a group of 12 kings, and that's kind of the leadership circle that runs everything. But it seems like what we can tell from the Etruscans is that there are a loose collection of city states that share some cultural interests. They have different leaders within the particular city states themselves who come together to talk about things. Now, whether that number is precisely 12 or some other number which isn't quite as pretty from a Roman perspective, I don't know.
Dr Rad 10:36
This is the big question. And then, of course, we've got the final conflict, the 10 year – asterix asterix – siege of Veii which is coming to an end in this particular year. Now, the interesting thing is that in this 10 years, we have seen they been continually rebuffed by its Etruscan sister, states, Sister cities. And this is something that the Romans, I think, find a bit puzzling, as well as modern scholars like ourselves. But I think that speaks to what you were just saying. The Etruscan cities are not a country or a nation in the way that we would understand it. In fact, even the way that they are represented in our sources might be a little bit questionable. We have these regular meetings where they all come together and they talk about matters that concern the Etruscan community. And this is where they says, Hey, I think I've got some remnants camped on my doorstep, little help. And the Etruscan saying, No. What some scholars have theorized is that maybe this collection was actually more religious in nature, or something along those lines, but it's been painted as more of a military or political alliance because the Romans maybe wanted to build up the nature of the threat that they were facing in taking on Veii.
Dr G 12:04
Okay. This is a classic Roman literary trope, which, like listeners, need to be aware of, because the Romans will do this at every opportunity. There is nothing more satisfying than winning against a very worthy opponent. So it's not cool to, like, just beat up your neighbors and be like, I did it, and everyone like you're a bully. So it's much better if you can be like, Look, these guys were aggressive. They're a really potent force to have to deal with. They've got lots of friends in the north, but they're not chipping in because they know these guys are on the wrong side of things, and they should just be bowing down to Rome at this point. So it produces a kind of narrative that allows Roman citizens to feel good about the violence that they do to other people. And I suppose if this was a more modern period in history, you might start to think of this as a kind of like military nationalism. This is not how the ancient Romans would have thought about it, but it certainly has that kind of quality to it where it's about justification. It's about being proud of the violence that you're able to do, and that means that the enemy has to be worthy of being conquered in the first place.
Dr Rad 13:25
Absolutely. And what you just highlighted there again is that there have been all these supernatural signs as well that things are about to happen. The game is afoot, Dr. G.
Dr G 13:37
The gods are watching.
Dr Rad 13:40
We've seen in previous years, you know, the Romans needing to consult the Sibylline Books to go to the Delphic Oracle. We've seen the flooding of the Alban lake and the fact that the Romans need to, you know, fulfill a certain act in order to, in order for Veii to fall, you know, they've, we've seen them also trying to get the gods back on side. There's been various things that they've had to do in terms of the spiritual world. And it's possibly that actually what people like the later analysts had to work with, and the analysts of the people that Livy and Dionysus are working from, we presume they might have actually been working from probably your favorite source, Dr G, priestley records, who were keeping track of these big religious moments and developments which supposedly happened at around this time, and that might be part of that important skeleton that they're working from. And then lean into epics a little bit.
Dr G 14:36
Just few details here and there. That's fine,
Dr Rad 14:38
Yeah, just yeah. We'll add in like a massive hero, and I'll throw some Trojan war on top. You know, nothing, nothing too crazy.
Dr G 14:47
Get it all in there. Yeah, let's make this a rousing read as well as an exciting time for the gods.
Dr Rad 14:55
All right, Dr G, so here we are. I think it's time to actually dive in to 396. In the grand tradition of our podcast, please tell me who were the magistrates in this most momentous of years.
Dr G 15:46
Oh, this year is full of names. My God, there are so many. First of all, we've got military tribunes with consular power. Naturally, there's six of them. Chaotic times, Siege of Veii times. This is now pretty standard for them to have so many in the field. First of all, we've gotLucius Titinius Pansa Saccus, previously military tribune with consular power in 400 BCE.
Dr Rad 16:17
Not an accident. I'm going to come back to that.
Dr G 16:22
Look, I put it to you that we've got quite the cohort of plebeians, and this guy is the first of many. He is accompanied by Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, also military tribune with consular power in 400.
Dr Rad 16:42
The first plebeian one apparently.
Dr G 16:46
Apparently, except he serves with a whole bunch of others. Apparently,
Dr Rad 16:51
Shhh, your reality is ruining it.
Dr G 16:54
I'm sorry that Livy got something wrong. I really am.
I think we might have to, though. Okay, well, you can keep that position for now. We also have Publius Maelius Capitolinus, previously military tribune with consular power in 400 also a plebeian. That's three for three.
Dr Rad 17:21
Seeing a pattern here, seeing a pattern here,
Dr G 17:24
Quintus Maelius Vulso Capitolinus, now unfortunately, big brackets, patrician, then we have –
Dr Rad 17:33
There's bound to be at least one.
Dr G 17:35
You know, they can't help themselves, can they?
Dr Rad 17:36
Yeah.
Dr G 17:37
Gnaeus Genucius Augurinus, previously, military tribune with consular power in 399. Also notably a plebeian. And finally, last, but definitely not least, Lucius Atilius Priscus, also previously military tribune with consular power in 399. Also plebeian. So that's five of the six plebeians.
Dr Rad 18:06
But there are so many question marks we're going to get into this. But there are a lot of question marks about these names and who these guys are.
Dr G 18:12
And also like, does it matter if it's also the year where you get a dictator?
Dr Rad 18:17
Yes, let's roll him out. Dr G, who is our dictator for this year?
Dr G 18:23
Hold your breath, everybody. This is going to come as a massive surprise. Our dictator this year is a guy called Marcus Furius Camillus. Wow.
Dr Rad 18:32
The crowd goes wild! Now you know what? Our listeners might not be super excited to hear his name. Dr G, because whilst he's been around for a little while now, he has always kind of just been there, you know.
Dr G 18:47
Just hanging about, not, not hugely distinguishing himself, although he's done some things previously, military tribune with consular power in 401, and 398, so he's had a couple of rounds in The top gig, but now he's being given like a really special job dictator. And boy, we'll see how that goes for him. And he is joined by the master of the horse. So what happens when a dictator gets selected? The Senate usually decides that things have gotten out of hand in really particular ways. It might be a religious way. It might be a military way. There is a problem that needs to be solved. They require a dictator, somebody to take up all of the reins of power for a really finite period of time to solve this particular issue, whatever it is. And when that person is decided upon, and they accept the position and be like, Sure, I'll be dictator. Usually, the first thing that they do is select an offsider to be like their kind of like other person to be in charge of stuff. Now, the role of the master of the horse is something that I think we should definitely devote an episode to in the future, because there's some complexity there. But for now, it's sounds like a guy with a horse, very exciting. And this year we have Publius Cornelius Maguginensis.
Dr Rad 20:11
A mouthful.
Dr G 20:13
So he says. Previously, military tribune with consular power in 397. So everybody in these sort of top gigs has been around traps recently, but we also have some intereges. Oh, so finally, we're on to the last magistrates of this year.
Dr Rad 20:34
Are you sick of all this Latin?
Dr G 20:36
It's a lot, it's a lot, and they're all names. And you think to yourself, and after a while, you're like,Lucius this Marcus that? And it's like, look, we put them in here because we know the names. And apparently there's lists of these names, and you'll be surprised how little they're referred to in any of the actual source material. So it is kind of incredible, but we have three interreges which means that we've got a situation where at some point the cohort of magistrates that we have in power have to come out of power. And it seems to be not just related to the dictatorship, it may be related to other things as well. And there needs to be a new set of people decided upon. So you've got to have some interim people to look after that situation. And the interreges are those people. And we have Lucius Valerius, possibly Potitus brackets. We also have Quintus Servilius Fidenas, and also stepping into a second role for the year, Marcus Furius Camillus.
Dr Rad 21:38
Hmm.
Dr G 21:39
Hmm. What could it all mean?
Dr Rad 21:41
Curioser and curioser. Well, Dr G, I think I can clear up some of your questions around these magistrates. Oh, please allow me to use Livy,
Dr G 21:52
Please. I mean, that's the one source I haven't read.
Dr Rad 21:54
All right. So in order to understand why we have so many magistrates, and some of the details about these magistrates, we do need to backtrack a little bit to what I told you at the end of last episode, so you might remember that. Well, I'm going to call him, I guess, can I call him Calvus? Publius Licinius?
Dr G 22:15
You could. You know this, this very moderate plebeian who's completely okay for the patricians because he's such a mediocre individual.
Dr Rad 22:26
Exactly, yes, I feel like Calvus is a name that kind of distinguishes him. So that guy, the guy that was the first official military tribune with consular power in 400 BCE, the end of last episode, when they were organizing the elections for the next year. He was brought in even though he wasn't running for the position, because the Romans looked around and thought, You know what? We need someone moderate right now, things are a little tense in the city, between patricians and plebeians. This whole situation with they there's been that whole lake issue. We need someone moderate who's going to calm everything down. You know what? We'll bring him back, and we'll get the band back together, military tribunes with consular power, 400 BC, it's your time to rock and roll.
Dr G 23:18
It's retro.
Dr Rad 23:19
Only one slight problem with that, Dr, G, and you already highlighted it in your list of magistrates.
Dr G 23:25
And what is that problem?
Dr Rad 23:27
That they're not all from 400 BCE.
Well, this is the issue. Livy tells us that this is what happened that he was brought in. And they were like, yep, we'll bring back his whole little gang, because that worked really well. Let's go with a tried and true recipe here. But the names do not match. Some of them do, sure, but not all of them.
Dr G 23:55
These people
Dr Rad 23:56
Problem number one. Now the interreges come into the story because, of course, they were holding power because, you might recall, there was an issue with the previous set of military tribunes with consular power, so they were holding power until the next elections were organized, and that's why we have some interreges listed.
Dr G 24:16
Oh, okay, so they're actually related to whatever happened in 397
Dr Rad 24:21
Yes, this is probably something we should probably mention quickly. The Roman year doesn't function in the same way that our current calendar year works, where we say we begin in January and end in December. Technically speaking, Dr G and I have been misleading you somewhat. Listen in that there's always kind of two of our years that make up a Roman year because they end at a different time. So it might be September, for example, that the Roman year ends in terms of when new magistrates are coming in. And the Romans, of course, date their years by the magistrates. They don't know who Jesus is; they don't care at this moment in time, and so they just don't have the same system that we have. So yes, basically, as far as we can tell, there was an issue where the previous group of military tribunes with consular power, there was some problem with the way that they were inaugurated. I'm going to say
Dr G 25:19
yep
Dr Rad 25:20
And as a result, they had to have some interreges, and they had to organize a new set coming through. And this is where we had Calvus being mentioned as being someone who would be good for the job. So look, that is where we are at.
Dr G 25:33
Safe pair of hands. Get him in there.
Dr Rad 25:36
Exactly. Now, Calvus himself is pretty chuffed, as you can imagine, to have been brought up as the leader of this dream team. We are Dream Girls. Yeah, we'll make you happy. Yeah, yeah. However, there's a problem, there's a problem, yeah, there is a problem, yeah, in spite of the exhilarating soundtrack to this year, Calvus is getting on in years. You might remember when we first talked about him as military tribune with consular power in 400 we talked about the fact that he'd apparently served in the Senate for like yonks, and we were shocked that he'd just been in the Senate. This little plebeian guy never heard of-
Dr G 26:19
Just hanging out there-
Dr Rad 26:19
Yeah, he is the one. So he seems to be an elderly man by this point in time, okay? And he doesn't feel like he's actually physically up to the job. He actually details all the different ways that he's not up for the job. He's got issues with his sight, his hearing is worse. I sympathize. And just generally, physically, he's just about for he even says his memory is bad. I mean, I think we're dealing with Joe Biden here.
Dr G 26:52
It's a tough time. Yeah, look, look, put that guy in charge. You know, the one with the white hairover there. It'll be great.
Dr Rad 27:00
Well, it would make sense as a senator, given where we think that word comes from, something to do with old men. However, he has a plan, because he doesn't want to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. And after all, he knows why he's being singled out, and he doesn't want to ruin that for Rome, given that everyone seems to be on board. So he suggests, Hey, did you know I have a kid, Calvus 2.0 I like to call him the new and improved model. He has exactly the same values as me because I raised him. And as we all know, in ancient Rome, anybody has children, their children turn out to be exactly the same as them. That's why all their families have exactly the same characteristics. It doesn't even matter if you're talking about the grandfather or the son, they'll basically be the same person.
Dr G 27:54
Yes, so this is a way in which Roman families work very differently from the way we think of modern families. So the politics of the ancient Roman family seems to be really grounded in upholding familial tradition. So you gotta toe the line. If you don't, you're just not gonna progress with your career in any particular way, like your family won't put you forward for things. We start to see this really particularly later on in the Republic. But I suppose what Livy might be suggesting here is that there's some retrojection of those sort of ideas. Those ideas come from somewhere, and the natural sort of conservatism of the Roman family structure is on full display here.
Dr Rad 28:42
It is. And what is even more shocking than the fact that this guy was chosen for this highly contested office without putting himself forward and seemingly being on his last legs, everyone agrees that, yeah, we'll just take the sun. That's fine. We'll take the discount model we want. We want him. We want a bit of that interesting. Okay, yes, now this is where I do have to highlight a possible problem with Livy's source material, and it pains me to say it, Dr G.
Dr G 29:14
Well, I'm glad you're confessing to it, because it sounds like a problem to me as well, and I was going to mention as such. So please. What's the problem here?
Dr Rad 29:25
I shall atone for him. Shame. So Livy is drawing on, obviously, a bunch of earlier sources, which we unfortunately don't often have, or if we do have any of them, it's very fragmentary, hard to put together. We do know, though, that one of his sources that he switches around between is from a family chronicler called Licinus Macer or Macer, depending on how you like your C's. Now the name says it all, Dr G, these two guys that we're talking about, if I give them their full name, they are, of course, the Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus – that's the dad Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus – Licinius, it's right there. It seems like maybe one of Livy's sources might have been trying to add a little bit of pixie dust to his family history, perhaps.
Dr G 30:19
Ah yes. So Licnius Macer is obviously part of the broader Licinius gens, and there's a real incentive in terms of Roman family politics, to build the gens history up in various ways. So we are caught in a pretty tricky position, because we know that there is incentive in our source material to put together a certain perspective for us.
Dr Rad 30:48
absolutely it is the curated Instagram of ancient Rome, these family histories which have snuck into our source material.
Dr G 30:57
Well
Dr Rad 30:57
Dodgy.
Dr G 30:58
What else did Livy have to work with? I mean, this is the real trouble.
Dr Rad 31:01
Well, yes. I mean, if we look at the Fasti and we look at other sources, they all list the father as the magistrate for this particular year. So it's interesting that we do have this embellishment where the Romans are like, yeah, cool, just flip your son in, yeah, you're basically the same person because you're related, right?
Dr G 31:20
Yes. So the Fasti Capitolini was produced quite a bit later, as far as we assume. But yes, they do mention the father holding the position for the second time.
Dr Rad 31:32
Yes
Dr G 31:32
Not the son, which would be distinguished with a different sort of ligature.
Dr Rad 31:38
Yeah. So obviously, there are huge issues with the lists of names for this year, given that Livy's telling us, oh yeah, they got all the guys from 400 and then the father was like, No, take my son. And everyone was like, yeah, cool, sure. And none of this seems to be reflected in the records of names that we have. The names do not match up with the narrative that Livy is giving us. Now it is possible that they're trying to perhaps imitate another story from Greece, with this whole father son dynamic, that of Periander, who was the second tyrant of Corinth and ruled from around 627, to around 587 BCE, there was a whole shindig with him possibly stepping aside for a son, didn't really work out that well, but it might be that they're trying to draw on other examples here. We don't know what's going on, but this is what academics have noticed in terms of the way that the source material is developing and the kind of narrative that might be being laid over the bare bones that they would have had to work with.
Dr G 32:45
Look to me, all of this is really fascinating, because, as you know, I don't have a lot of Dionysus, of Halicarnassus right now, who was-
Dr Rad 32:54
What? This is brand new information.
Dr G 32:58
I've got a little bit, but I don't have him in the fulsome way that I would really like to be able to offer a counter narrative to what Livy is doing. But because this year is so significant, I actually have heaps of sources for this year. But you know what? None of them care about anything to do with these military tribunes, fathers, sons or otherwise, it is not on their radar. It is not the centerpiece for this year at all. And so I'm really grateful that Livy is providing a little bit of embellishment and detail, because this is making up for a more fulsome story, which I had no idea existed because I didn't have to read Livy in order to prepare for this episode.
Dr Rad 33:39
This is why you have to read all the primary source material, children.
Dr G 33:44
Let this be a lesson to you all. Now, as a good ancient historian, I would if I was studying this period for real, not within the context of this podcast, which is also studying for it, for real in another way,
Dr Rad 33:56
I was going to say – what? This isn't for real? Am I in The Matrix?
Dr G 34:00
But let's say, If I was writing an academic paper, obviously I would have also read Livy
Dr Rad 34:04
Sure
Dr G 34:04
But because that's not what we're doing here, because we're reading different
Dr Rad 34:08
We have a schtick
Dr G 34:09
Yeah, we're reading different primary source material. That's part of the process with this. So it creates these really interesting gaps for me at times, and this is definitely one of them, like I had all of this list of names that I got from Broughton. Love Broughton always thankful for the work that Broughton has done here, compiling these massive lists of magistrates for every year throughout all of the Republic. And I had this list, and then I had the source material. And look, I have excerpts from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Valerius Maximus Pliny the Elder, Appian, Florus, Aulus Gellius, Eutropius, the anonymous but pseudo Aurelius Victor, Augustine, Orosius, and Zonaras. I have. All of these sources. And you know what? None of them mention this controversy with father and son as military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 35:07
Well, quite frankly, you just look lazy, now.
Dr G 35:12
What are they not telling me?
Dr Rad 35:13
I do appreciate all that different source material, because I have read… Livy.
Dr G 35:18
The suppression of information here is profound.
Dr Rad 35:24
Now let's get on to some action, because I think this is what your sources want us to get to. So Titus and Genucius some of our military tribunes with consular power, they are sent to deal with the allies of Veii. Now I know I just said that the Etruscans were later-dazing the people of They, however, not all Etruscans turned their backs on the people of Veii. We do have people from nearby cities, the Faliscans and the Capenantes, who decided that, oh, I guess if Veii falls,that means that we're probably next on Rome's plans of expansion. So we probably should help them out. So they do have some allies from up north, Titanius and Genucius are very keen to wipe the floor with these guys. However, their enthusiasm might have led them astray, Dr G.
Dr G 36:19
Oh, no, what have they done?
Dr Rad 36:21
They didn't spend quite enough time planning everything out, and they decide that they're going to launch straight into an ambush without following all the possibilities through. Now what ends up happening is that Genucius dies fighting bravely at the front of this battle. In fact, he dies in front of the standards, Dr. G.
Dr G 36:48
Oh, that's terrible news. Okay, of all of the places to die, that is from a sort of divine perspective, the worst.
Dr Rad 36:58
However, it is kind of admirable in the sense of it shows his bravery. So even though the Romans are going to be really irritated by the fact that they just launch in without much forethought, they forgive him because he's dead.
Dr G 37:15
Ah, okay, because he led from the front, so presumably his wounds are also at the front.
Dr Rad 37:22
Hell yes, they are. Actually, it doesn't specifically say, but I would presume so definitely, the point is being made here that he was brave and he was trying to do the right thing, even though completely missed that.
Dr G 37:34
And the kind of commander that is willing to put themselves at risk in the front line is you could view this as being, like, quite silly, because obviously the army needs its commander, and if you lose the commander, the army will probably fall apart, because they won't know what to do anymore. Because you need somebody strategic maybe. But from a Roman perspective, this is a huge courage as well. Like, this is the sort of thing where it's like, you can really rally the troops if you lead from the front and get them into it, if they weren't really sure about what was going on and be like, run in.
Dr Rad 37:34
Yeah, just try not to die in the process.
Dr G 38:08
Yeah.
Dr Rad 38:08
That tends to be a downer.
Dr G 38:09
Don't do a Genucius, because it's risky if you die.
Dr Rad 38:15
And there are some questions again, about the nature of this death, because there is another conucius from 362 BCE, who dies in a suspiciously similar fashion, Dr G.
Dr G 38:28
So, looking forward, in another sort of 40 years, we're going to have a similar moment. Okay.
Dr Rad 38:35
We might, we might.
Dr G 38:37
I sense problems with the chronology.
Dr Rad 38:40
Yes. Now Titinius, of course, is still alive, but the men all around him are thrown into chaos. Things are unraveling fairly quickly in this scenario, not ideal, so Titinius decides to gather all the men around, and he says, You know what? I feel like it's too much of a risk to fight our enemy on level ground. So I would imagine like some sort of open plain where everyone can see everybody. It's open season.
Dr G 39:10
There's nowhere to hide.
Dr Rad 39:11
It's wabbit season. Yeah, so things are not going particularly well, and the Romans do not feel great about this, and Titinius is going to cop all of the flat, because he is the one that's left alive after this defeat. Very disgraceful. The Romans back in the city as well are panicking, as we see so often, because rumor of what is going down has reached them, which, again, sort of shows you just how close these things must be happening. Even though they sound very grand, they're obviously not that far away, in that rumour can get back to the city pretty quickly in time enough for people to start tearing out their hair.
Dr G 39:55
All right. So, yeah, Rome's not in a great way. They're not feeling the vibe. They're having a bit of a panic. Okay, goodo.
Dr Rad 40:00
Now even worse, perhaps, there is, of course, the military encampment before they where the Romans are besieging the city. They also hear that there's been a pretty catastrophic defeat, and one of the Roman magistrates has been killed again. Not a morale booster. No, not what you want to hear in 396 BCE,
Dr G 40:03
No, not after you've been at this siege for so long.
Dr Rad 40:05
No. So they've heard that the Capenantes and Faliscans have won, killed the commanders and slaughtered the whole army, and that the remnants of their enemies are now coming for them, backed by all the men of Etruria.
Dr G 40:45
Oh, okay, well, that's a real turnaround for the books, because last I heard, Etruria was not coming.
Dr Rad 40:52
Look, it's another good lesson for our listeners, Dr G, in that rumors can get out of hand really quickly. Yeah. So in Rome, they've heard that all of the same things. So they've heard all of that, plus they've heard that the encampment before they of their fellow Romans is also being assaulted, and that, you know, there are going to be more people sent from their enemy towards the city itself. Okay, so their camp is under siege. They're going to be attacked next and again, not far away. So time is a ticking.
Dr G 41:28
It seems like the panic is really setting in, and it's becoming a bit contagious, isn't it? And everybody's story is worse than the last story, and people are believing everything that they hear regardless.
Dr Rad 41:40
It does seem that so we have this scene in Livy where the Roman citizens are racing to the walls. The women of Rome are running to the temples to pray for the protection from the gods, and they want instead for the gods to back Rome. Trash Veii. What is with this? What is with this turning of tables? Not appreciated gods of Rome. Thank you very much.
Dr G 42:03
We started this violence. We need to win to end it, not lose.
Dr Rad 42:08
Exactly. And they're like, look, we'll make sure that all the sacred rites are fully renewed. We'll make sure that all the signs are dealt with. We'll deal with all the stuff you want us to deal with. Just please, please, make sure our city stays strong and our enemies are defeated.
Dr G 42:29
Okay, that's, it's a big call.
Dr Rad 42:30
Now if this is ringing any bells it should. Once again, we have a bit of Homeric additions being inserted here. This is potentially meant to remind readers of what happened when Hector went out to battle. So it's meant to be drawing on the Iliad basically.
Dr G 42:53
Interesting.
Dr Rad 42:54
Yeah. So panic in the city, women in temples. You know? Prayer happening? People at the walls.
Dr G 43:02
Yeah, everything's getting to its sort of climactic moment, isn't it?
Dr Rad 43:08
It really is, yes. So this is perhaps the moment to pause and just talk a little bit about what Livy's actually drawing on here. So we've already talked about the priestly records, the family chroniclers, maybe drawing on later incidents in Roman history to make sense of the bare bones, and not Livy directly, perhaps also obviously his sources, the earlier analysts and that sort of thing. But we may also even have other sources, like Ennius, who I know you've spoken about a little bit before.
Dr G 43:40
Yes, so Ennius writes an epic of Rome's foundation and early history, and his text becomes the preeminent school text for many centuries. So it's only really displaced by Virgil's Aeneid, and that takes a while. So there's a good couple of 100 years where Ennius is the go to text, to learn, to study poetry, but also to learn about Rome's history. So it would make sense for Livy to be drawing upon it, for sure.
Dr Rad 44:19
Yeah, and this is exactly it we so we've got Licinius Macer. He's probably also drawing on someone called Valerius Antius, again, someone we don't have much of, but we know was a major source of Livy. But he is also drawing on these epic traditions, which would come from ennius, would come from Homer. And this passage, apparently was also then later copied by other Greco-Roman writers because they found it, you know, very inspirational scene. I think it would be like them seeing a really intense part of a movie, you know, a scene that really resonates with them and gives them a strong visual. And so they go back to it as a reference point. And they're doing their own version of something later on. So that particular passage is actually meant to be kind of iconic, I suppose.
Dr G 45:08
Mmm0mmm. Ah interesting. So, yeah, we're getting more into like, what is history and is it just literature in another form.
Dr Rad 45:19
Indeed, indeed. Now, of course, the Romans need to make sure that their relationship is square with the gods if they want to see any success against Veii, and want to make sure they escape this terrible fate which seems to await them right now, enemies of the gate, although they're not really in this rumored so water obviously had to be drawn off the Alban lake. And we know that potentially, this actually did happen, because we've got those remnants that we've talked about before, of, you know, the tunneling and that sort of thing. We don't know exactly when that happened. Does it line up with these accounts? But there's some sort of record there which is interesting, giving some archeological backing to our literary accounts. There does seem to have also been some issues with games, or some sort of festival that the Romans were meant to have held at this point in time, which would be again, connected with the gods. It sounds like, Oh, what a great moment to kick up your feet and have a great time, but that's not, obviously what it's about. And you would know more about this than I would with its religious connections, things like games and festivals.
Dr G 46:24
Well, sure, if it had cropped up in any of my sources, I would be able to tell you something about it. I mean in general terms, I assume this is going to be a reference and correct me if I'm wrong to one of the sort of Pan Latin get togethers, where people of a Latin background gather in certain locations to do some shared ritual stuff. So you have to send people out of the city, which obviously, in this at this point in time, sounds like it would be quite dangerous. Maybe it's not the time to have a festival where you send some delegates.
Dr Rad 47:01
The Festivus for the rest of us.
Dr G 47:02
Yeah, look, everybody's running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Is now the time other people would definitely argue, within the context of the city, that it is more important than ever to send a delegation to something that might be a collective kind of festival, precisely because everything seems to be in a very delicate balance, not in favor of Rome.
Dr Rad 47:28
Yes, and this is exactly why they're like, Oh, crap. We really should have dealt with that water situation on the Alban lake before all of this went down. And they talk about games and a Latin festival. So I think you're 100% on the money. Part of the issue, apparently, is that, from later sources, standpoints, they tend to use terms like Ludi and Feriae. I don't know how to say that actually properly. And that, now that I read, now that I'm saying it out loud, I've just been reading it all this time, they are both things that involve people having holidays in ancient Rome, but they're not necessarily, obviously, exactly the same thing that happened at exactly the same time. When we talk about Ludi or games later on, we are talking more about public games. You know, by the time we get into the period that's better documented. But that's not necessarily what's happening at this moment in time. We don't necessarily see games being attached to festivals this early, from my understanding, so there might be a bit of confusion there, but certainly there's some sort of, you know, festival connected with the gods that the Romans realized. Well, we better hold them again, because the gods are clearly not on our side right now, not with enemies at the gate. No, thank you. And so they're dealing with basically everything they possibly can. They're trying to put out all the fires to make sure that they are protected.
Dr G 48:53
Yep, fair enough. Send the delegation. Do the games? Do the festivals? Go to the sweet locations and do some sacrifices.
Dr Rad 49:01
Yes, and now that this is all taken care of, that the Romans think very smugly to themselves, it is time for Veii to die. Mwahahahahaha.
Dr G 49:14
Oooo boy. Okay? Well, in that case, I think as as horrifying as it's going to sound, I think this might be the moment to pause and to wrap up this episode, because I leave it on this cliffhanger, because things are about to happen and wow, what a build up.
Dr Rad 49:35
Absolutely. I mean, it shows that 396 didn't necessarily start off that well for the Romanshowever, trust us, listeners, we're building to a climax.
Dr G 49:49
Ooh, boy
Dr Rad 49:50
yeah, fun is us here with us. All right. Dr, G, well, that means it is time for the Partial Pick.
Dr G 49:58
(bird noises)
Dr Rad 50:01
Tell us how the Partial Pick works, Dr G.
Dr G 50:03
Well, we are raiding Rome against its own sort of measures of success. Now, I don't, I don't anticipate Rome's gonna do great right now, but let's give it a whirl and see. So we've got five categories, and within each category there are 10 Golden Eagles up for grabs. So the golden eagles are like the fancy things that might sit on top of your standard and
Dr Rad 50:34
Before you die in front of it.
Dr G 50:35
Before you die in front of it, yeah, or before you lose it, you know, all of those kinds of positive things. So the first category is military clout.
Dr Rad 50:45
Right. Well, so far in 396 the Romans have had a disastrous defeat.
Dr G 50:51
Yeah, they've gone for what an unplanned ambush that has led to the death of one of the military tribunes with consular power, and then the other one copping all of the blame for whatever happened next, which doesn't seem great.
Dr Rad 51:08
And the Romans themselves don't even seem to really know what is going on, because there's such chaos amongst his forces. So, yeah, not looking good.
Dr G 51:17
Look, I feel like we can't give them much of a score. It's probably I, I'd be inclined to maybe give them a one for the fact that they're still holding out at the siege area of Veii
Dr Rad 51:29
sure, yeah, well that's the thing. They haven't actually lost any territory or anything. They just were trying to take care of the allies of Veii It did not work.
Dr G 51:40
Yeah, yeah, they've suffered some military defeats, but we haven't heard anything particularly negative about what has happened outside the gates of Veii. I mean, there's been some sort of panic stations in Rome, but it sounds like they're operating on rumor rather than fact. So I'm willing to give Rome one.
Dr Rad 51:58
Fair enough, that is one.
Dr G 52:00
One point. So far so good. Our second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 52:08
I feel like there is not much diplomacy going on, given that they're trying to ambush their enemies. It sounds like there is no diplomacy going on. That's a zero from me.
Dr G 52:20
All right? Expansion.
Dr Rad 52:23
No, not yet. Not yet. We're tiptoeing closer, ever closer.
Dr G 52:31
Foreshadowing. Okay, so that's a zero. Virtus?
Dr Rad 52:37
Okay, now, as disastrous as this whole plan was, I feel like maybe is dying at the front of his forces is an example of virtus, and that's why the Romans are like, Well, you're a bit of an idiot, but we love you, buddy.
Dr G 52:56
It's sad and tragic, but thanks for doing it the right way.
Dr Rad 53:01
Exactly if you're gonna go out, glad you went out in style.
Dr G 53:04
Yeah. So this is where, like Roman value systems are really quite different from anything that we would be accustomed to. Because when I hear about somebody leading from the front, I think very foolish, but I think the Romans think, Wow. What a man.
Dr Rad 53:23
They do. They hear that Salt'n'Pepa, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr G 53:29
And look, if he'd come back alive, that would have been chef's kiss from a Roman perspective.
Dr Rad 53:36
Yes, exactly, leading from the front. Glorious win.
Dr G 53:41
Yeah.
Dr Rad 53:41
All would have been good.
Dr G 53:42
You can't beat anything like that. He would have been a star player for years to come as a result of that. It's just a real tragedy that he went and died instead.
Dr Rad 53:51
Yep, and left his teammate out there, going, what am I going to do now?
Dr G 53:57
Yeah, like guys, I thought we were a team, but you've left me all by myself.
Dr Rad 54:06
Poor Titinius.
Dr G 54:08
Indeed. So the last category is the citizen score. Was this a good time to be a citizen of Rome?
Dr Rad 54:17
Sounds pretty panicky. Sounds pretty sweaty.
Dr G 54:19
It sounds like everybody's scared and rushing to the temples, doing some prayers, rushing to the walls, being like is the enemy at the gate. Oh God!
Dr Rad 54:31
They're keeping eagle eyes out. They're definitely feeling paranoid and not unjustifiably, whilst we're laughing at the fact that this rumors got completely out of hand. You can understand why they would think that if the Romans have just had a catastrophic defeat, it's not out of the question that the remnants of the Faliscans and Capenantes will eventually make their way there. I mean, why wouldn't they, in some senses?
Dr G 54:57
Well, exactly. So there is a justifiable fear that the army that has just won over the Romans on the field will proceed to then March on Rome. And really, Romans sort of set themselves up for something like that, because if you've been besieging one of your neighbors for the last decade, maybe you've given your neighbors some ideas about how they could treat you.
Dr Rad 55:25
So look, it might be mythologized. Maybe the Romans were actually in the bath with a cup of tea and a scented candle burning, and they weren't panicked at all. But even if we strip away the Homeric elements, I think it would make sense for the Romans to be feeling the pinch right about now.
Dr G 55:43
Definitely. So, in this sense, and particularly when we also have to account for the facts that people who had died on the battlefield also very likely to have been Roman citizens of some kind, then this is not great, not great news at all.
Dr Rad 55:59
So is that a zero?
Dr G 56:00
I think so.
Dr Rad 56:02
Wow. We really built up this episode, and now the Romans are here with just one out of 50 Golden Eagle.
Dr G 56:07
We are not done with 396.
Dr Rad 56:10
No, I was gonna say, I feel like we should maybe add that one eagle to the other eagles that they may or may not win for themselves down the track.
Dr G 56:22
Ooo that is, that's a big call. I think we can argue about that one when we get there.
Dr Rad 56:26
All right, all right. I look forward to it, Dr G.
Dr G 56:30
Likewise. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com – We offer a huge thank you to you, if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We're on Ko-Fi for one or four ongoing donations or Patreon, of course. Our latest book, ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire', is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don't want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome's glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire'.
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WARNING! This post and episode both contain spoilers!
In case you somehow missed it, the hotly anticipated sequel to Gladiator (2000) hit the cinemas in November 2024. Gladiator II follows the story of Lucius Verus, the child of Lucilla and the hero from the first film, Maximus. Nope, we did not know that was a thing either.
Poster for Gladiator II, Source: https://deadline.com
After being separated from his imperial family following the death of his uncle (the Emperor Commodus), the adult Lucius ends up in the arena. His owner is Macrinus, an actual historical figure who served as emperor briefly in the third century CE. The film follows Macrinus and Lucius as they navigate the complicated political world of Rome under the Emperors Caracalla and Geta. Will Lucius be able to rid Rome of corruption, once and for all? (Dramatic music)
Joining us today to discuss the film is the delightful Lindsay Steenberg.
Special Episode – Gladiator II with Dr Lindsay Steenberg
Dr Lindsay Steenberg is currently a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University where she co-ordinates the graduate programme in Popular Cinema. Her research interests are violence and gender in postmodern and postfeminist media culture. If you like true crime, you should definitely check out her back catalogue. Whilst Dr Steenberg has published widely and regularly presents at conferences, our particular point of connection is her interest in gladiators. She is the author Are you not entertained? Mapping the Gladiator Across Visual Media, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2020.
We hope that you enjoy our conversation as we unpack:
Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.
Dr Lindsay Steenberg's book Are You Not Entertained? Mapping the Gladiator Across Visual Media.
We recommend it!
Dr Rad 0:00
Hello. You're about to listen to a special episode of the partial historians, which is all about gladiator two, a movie set in the reign of Caracalla and Geta
so
Dr G 0:12
so we are warning you in advance that this conversation will contain spoilers if you have not yet gone to the cinemapost haste, my friends get there soon and come back and listen. Or if you don't care about spoilers, and in fact, you thrive in an environment where you know all of the details before you see a thing, please continue listening and enjoying.
Dr Rad 0:35
And it pretty much turns out as we all expected. Dr G Maximus came back to life and married me in the future, just as I always wanted. Finally, a New Zealand man finds his Australian bride, that's right, and now on with the show you.
Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 1:10
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 1:15
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr rad and
Dr G 1:25
I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Join
Dr Rad 1:36
us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Hello and welcome to another special episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr rad,
Dr G 2:00
and I'm Dr G
Dr Rad 2:02
And we are super excited because we're going to be talking about another gladiator movie today. Dr G, just when you thought you couldn't get enough,
Dr G 2:10
I can't get enough. That's why I'm here, exactly. And
Dr Rad 2:15
we are super lucky to be joined by an expert, an international expert, Dr Lindsay Steenberg is currently a senior lecturer in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, where she coordinates the graduate program in popular cinema. Her research interests are violence and gender in post modern and post feminist media culture. If you like true crime, you should definitely check out her back catalog. Whilst Dr Steenberg has published widely and regularly presents at conferences, our particular point of connection is her interest in gladiators. She is the author of, are you not entertained? Mapping the gladiator across visual media, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. Being astute listeners, I am sure that you have all correctly guessed that she is here to discuss gladiator two with us, which was at time of recording, just released in cinemas. Welcome Dr Steenberg,
Lindsay Steenberg 3:15
thank you so much for having me and for giving me the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subject matters gladiator movies, you're
Dr Rad 3:23
in good company here. You know, it's one of the things I think that we do the most around here. So look, we are so keen to talk a little bit about gladiator two with you, and also the aspects that you have looked at in your work. So we thought we might start off with the part that people probably remember most vividly when they see a gladiator film, particularly a Ridley Scott gladiator film, and that is, of course, the arena sequences. So please tell us what is often the function of the arena in Gladiator films.
Lindsay Steenberg 3:54
Okay, again, favorite subject matter within my favorite subject, yeah. So I've spent more time than really any human should, thinking about arena fights. And I can say that when it comes to the almost the genre of gladiator movies, they're the most important part. You can't have a gladiator movie if there's not any gladiating So I have spent quite a bit of time over quite a few different films, looking at the kinds of conventions, the way that the arena works. Why we keep going back there again and again? So in terms of what the function is really, it kind of defies the logic of a lot of action movies, which is, it isn't just story or spectacle, it's both at once. So you get them in a handy little place. The Arena fights almost a movie within a movie, it has a beginning, it has a middle, it has an end. You enter the amphitheater. You have some looking around to see what's there, some spectacle over architecture and bodies. You get the quality violence in the middle. And then you sort of exit the amphitheater, and that's the end of your of your. Little mini film within a film, they often are great places where you come to understand how power works in the film itself. It's a nice little structure. I mean, if you think about the way an amphitheater is designed in that in that oval kind of shape, it means everybody can see everybody else. So the kind of layers of the way that the looking works. It's like we in the cinema are looking at the amphitheater. The people who are in the audience are looking and being looked at. You've got the sort of authority figure sitting there watching, and we're watching them. Then you've got the people down on the sands doing their thing. So it really it becomes a way to further the plot, to show who's good, who's bad, who's skilled, who's dead. It also sort of provides an opportunity to raise the stakes of the plot. So you've got sort of Concerned Women are often there in the audience, rarely on the sands, and they can kind of look and look worried, or look very desiringly at the gladiators on the sands as well. That's a bit of a spectacle, in that sense, as well. And then the Gladiator, of course, is looking at the audience as well. And that's why you get are you not entertained? He's judging us for watching him. So it kind of does all of that at once, very economical kind of spectacle,
Dr G 6:10
a bit like an ancient panopticon where viewing is happening in all directions.
Lindsay Steenberg 6:15
It absolutely is. And that and the sort of really seamless functioning of power works. You know, you don't have to work for it. The shape almost guarantees that. And you know, the movies love that. They love that shape. You can do some amazing things just with a nice little pan across the audience with a nice aerial establishing shot to see the shape of the amphitheater, so you can see, see deliberately, the way that power works in a very spatial sense. I
Dr Rad 6:39
must admit, I do love a good camera pan around the arena. It's
Lindsay Steenberg 6:45
got to be done. It's it's hard to tell who that gaze belongs to when you do the full kind of almost 360 probably to the gladiators on the sand. But it just get lets you see questions what the spectacle is. Maybe it's the audience. Because if you've seen, if you've seen the stars show Spartacus, the crowds and theaters are as much they're frequently naked. One wonders why? Well, I guess one does,
Dr Rad 7:10
yeah, they kind of
Lindsay Steenberg 7:12
look around and they're like, oh yes, look at the audience. So, you know, you get to do everything with that 360 pan.
Dr G 7:17
I think this sets things up really nicely, because you you've described it as this sort of miniature film within a film. And I do love that that kind of MIS on a beam aspect of it, and that leads us really nicely into thinking about what some of the conventions might be for these arena sequences. What are audiences expecting, and where have those expectations come from in cinematic history?
Lindsay Steenberg 7:39
Oh, I've got stuff on this. Let me tell you, it is a kind of mise en a beam. And one scholar describes it as a mise en spectacle. So, you know, a spectacle within the spectacle of the film. So the kinds of conventions that you get, it's really interesting. As somebody who studies film, I hate saying that, like, oh, it's universal. It's always the same. Because films, you know, reveal a lot about the time and place they were made and the time and place they're watched. But a gladiator fight is remarkably consistent. So the conventions are really, really sticky. We really like them. We're not giving them up as to where they came from. It's a little bit hard, you know, there's a there's a myth that may have basis in fact that when Ridley Scott was going to make the original gladiator film. Someone showed him a picture of the painting pelica verso, which has a gladiator waiting to kind of decide if he for the Emperor, decide if he's going to die. And it's, you know, so this neoclassical, sumptuous painting, and someone held it up and said, I want to make this painting into a movie. And that was how they kind of worked. So like in the Colosseum with those conventions. So the way the sort of typical, the typical arena fight goes is that you always want to have the pre fight sequence down in the backstage area, bonus points if it's in that nice little basement beneath the trap doors, kind of area that's very exciting. It always it often sounds really similar, like there's like whisperings of gladiators in the corner, this kind of metallic clangings, and then you have that beautiful from the dark tunnel into the amphitheater sequence. It's often sort of backlit, so you can see the outline, the silhouette. And then all of a sudden, you get the spectacle and that pan of of the arena and who's watching and who's there, the way that I sort of tend to shorthand describe what are the conventions of a gladiator fight. Are from the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. So Tina Turner's there, Mel Gibson's there,
Dr Rad 9:29
two men into. One man leaves, two men enter, one man leaves. You know, how
Lindsay Steenberg 9:33
do you do a gladiator fight? That's it. That's what you do. It's just two men enter. That's the scenario. That's the setup. But within that, of course, there's nuance, there's always a moment where the camera is going to spend a little extra time looking at the gladiator who wants you to have time to enjoy that he is part of the spectacle. You know, you're going to have a moment where, if the gladiator fight is between more than just one versus one, you're going to have a moment where the men bond, you know, where Maximus is like, you know, if any of you. Been in the army. Stick with me the same in the second film, like, Okay, guys, we're going to do this together. So you get the bonding, the Brotherhood of the gladiators. You sort of do that. You get that moment of the salute, which I know historians, it makes them a bit itchy, because it never happens, but Hollywood says it did, and apparently we love that. We want the gladiatorial salute. I noticed that in the second gladiator film, they don't really do that. I think they're sidestepping. They're trying not to get them themselves into some historical trouble. But the we who about are about to die, salute you is, is part of so many gladiator movies that we really like that, that part. So you normally get the salute before or the presentation of the gladiators before the fight. The fight is interesting because I am currently also writing a book now on fight scenes, so I spend a lot of time watching fighting. There's not as much fighting in an arena fight as one might expect. A lot of it is talking, planning, staring at rhinoceros, thinking about what you're going to do next, you know, giving a nice little speech to the crowd. How very dare you watch me staring at the Emperor? So, you know, the actual percentage of sword on shield action is quite small because it's, it's a narrative spectacles, whether as well as a violent spectacle. So you'll always get that talking the moment of sort of dialog in there. And then, of course, you always have the thumbs up or the thumbs down again. I think it's something that makes historians itchy, but it's something that Hollywood says, Yep, we want it. We want thumbs up, we want thumbs down. It's really easy and where it all comes from. I mean, I've probably, I've probably watched more gladiator movies than than most humans. Any human it comes from. The beginning of cinema, you get these kind of biblical or historical epics that were made in Italy. I mean, Hollywood loves a biblical epic. So you know, right down, even in the in the silent era, or the early era of cinema, that you still got these kind of conventions. You still would have somebody fighting animals inside of an amphitheater. You would still get the thumbs up, thumbs down. So it's, I'd say, that the gladiator fights on screen are as old as cinema, so they often involve Pompeii. That's that's a place we like to fight, and
Dr Rad 12:07
we like it when the volcano erupts during a gladiator we
Lindsay Steenberg 12:11
really do. If you can get gladiators fighting for their lives behind the volcano exploding, we get disaster movie. We get action movie. It's all
Dr Rad 12:17
happening exactly, and what are they going to do to finish the fight or run?
Lindsay Steenberg 12:21
I think you'll find both. They're running, fighting what's happening, and
Dr Rad 12:27
they should grab their romantic interest as they leave, because you
Lindsay Steenberg 12:31
don't want to leave her. I mean, you do. A lot of ladies have been killed in Gladiator movies. They Yeah, in movies that were we watch now. Sometimes she doesn't even get a name. Maximus, wife has no name. She she's the dead wife, the murdered wife who who prompts him to vengeance. That didn't always used to be the case in an old Italian pedlum film, you often had the ladies had names. But in the millennial sort of moment, it was all about the sort of the gladiators trauma rather than any kind of romance. It seems that, you know, after Maximus, there's no love story anymore. We've abandoned that which is one sadness and violence. We want
Dr Rad 13:14
those Wistful glances. You
Lindsay Steenberg 13:16
know, so much wistful yeah,
Dr Rad 13:18
now I am so curious to ask you now what you thought about the arena sequences in Gladiator two. Because I must admit, I really quite liked the first gladiator film, and I remember when it initially came out, there was a lot of talk, obviously, about the way that they'd staged those arena sequences, particularly the ones that involved the Tigers and that sort of thing. And there is a really curious thing that Dr G has often picked up on, which is the picking up of the arena sand and the rubbing between the hands that Maximus and now Lucius does spoilers, everybody. But yeah, so we'd love to know what you think. Yeah, we'd love to know what you think about the arena sequences in Gladiator too.
Lindsay Steenberg 14:01
I mean, I was, I was in it for the arena sequences. That's what I was there for. So glad that there were sharks involved. It was, I don't know too much, I think it was delightful. In terms of the arena sequences. I did do the kind of slightly nerdy film thing. I brought a notebook to the cinema hoping that no one would notice, because I wanted to count the arena sequences, because in the original film, there's five arena sequences, and they range from that first one in North Africa, where he fights in that wooden structure, and it's quite sort of homespun, I guess, the amphitheater, and then up into the logical Yeah, just a little a baby, baby amphitheater, and then he goes to the Colosseum, and part of the shock and awe of that fight is the structure, the architecture itself, like this is Rome. So I was quite curious to see how many there would be and where, and they echo each other so closely. We get the first fight sequence with Lucius and this terrifying CGI, apes, monkeys.
Dr G 14:58
Yeah, we. CGI baboons
Lindsay Steenberg 15:01
aliens. Like, why didn't they have fur? I find
Dr G 15:05
it was a shocking choice. It
Lindsay Steenberg 15:07
was such a strange choice. And I find monkeys very frightening. So I was like, Whoa, I would I'd rather they would be, yeah,
Dr Rad 15:12
they were frightening, but also so unreal, like, so unrealistic for the first fight, like you said, like the first film. It seemed right that we started off in that sort of humble, provincial setting. Yeah, with this one, it feels like we started too big and
Lindsay Steenberg 15:28
and then with a with a strange, almost science fiction element. So yes, what I think marked the Coliseum or the the amphitheater fights of the first film was the combination of this digital spectacle like the crowd generation software was state of the art at the turn of the millennium, and people were really impressed with it, but it was also that it was rooted on the sands in that authenticity of like face punching action. So this in that fight, I thought, okay, here we're going to get that lovely combination of digital augmentation, but authentic, like corporeal authenticity. And then I don't know, crazy bald monkeys came, so I was sort of like, okay, I'm willing to I'm it was okay. But then that they was, soon as they got back to Rome, I felt okay. We can recall, we can recover this the arena fights were pretty spectacular. I'd say the choreography of the violence within the amphitheaters was probably more nuanced. It speaks to a franchise based American cinema that demands very sophisticated fighting. It doesn't just want your John Wayne walk up, punch a guy in the face and leave no it doesn't want that thing that they used to do in sort of Hollywood swashbucklers, where you sort of gently slice somebody, they bend over and they die. They wanted to have that kind of brutal realism, and it did deliver. So I haven't, I haven't crunched the numbers on the density of the violence, but I suspect if it follows the pattern that all other Hollywood movies do, there will be more violence, Less talking, more fighting. And I would say that kind of I loved the naval battle, probably just for the spectacle rather than, I don't know where the boats were gonna go. It was a pretty tight space,
Dr G 17:08
a tight space with artificial islands. So where were
Lindsay Steenberg 17:13
they gonna go and the sale? Did they need a sale? They didn't need a sale. But, you know, they crashed together. And we did get some some fighting there. And it, I kind of it felt like the sequel to 300 which was sort of 300 but in water, this was sort of like Gladiator, but in water speed. So I felt like that's, that's what they were doing, like now it's not safe to get in the water. The sharks were great. I loved them, and so were the kind of battle they had the rhinoceros, which I have to admit, I I felt very emotionally attached to that Rhino, and the little sad noises it was making, oh, poor Rhino. And then Pedro Pascal brings his mustache into the amphitheater for some quality, sort of like Oedipal father surrogate son kind of moment. And it that that sort of like that was a good kind of way to wrap up a narrative moment, but make it violent so that you get plot moved lots of violence. And then, of course, it was a little disappointing that Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal didn't fight each other in the Colosseum, but I understand that they wanted to fight in water and beyond Rome, so I forgave them for that. I just kind of wish they'd brought it back into the Colosseum for the final point. Oh, that
Dr G 18:25
would have been a moment, yeah, because it did feel like the river sequence, if we can call that body of river, is maybe the smallest tributary of the Tiber I've ever seen. It
Lindsay Steenberg 18:37
was a modest, little, very
Dr G 18:39
modest, yeah. I'm like, Guys, are you sure this is where
Lindsay Steenberg 18:44
you want to have your final fight? Yeah, I
Dr Rad 18:46
think you put your finger on something there. I actually was not that enamored of Lucius as a character. I think that you did a good job in the action sequences. There was enough brawn there and everything. But I must admit, I found Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington much more compelling to watch. And I agree. I would have loved to have seen them come together rather than what we actually got, which is, of course, is Lucius and Macrinus coming together after his confrontation with his stepfather. I'm going to call
Lindsay Steenberg 19:22
him Pedro Pascal, is the surrogate dad we all didn't know we needed. Yeah, he's always picking up something like whether it's a little Yoda or, you know, video game character,
Dr G 19:34
finding the child in all of us along the way. I want to hone in for a little moment on the nomarchia sequence, because I think this is one of those things that as a lover of Roman history, even though I'd be I'm very willing to pick up on the detail. I was super excited that this was something that was included in this film, because I feel like it's highly unlikely that I'm going to get to see a sea battle. People in the Colosseum, again, in any film in my lifetime. And I'm interested in your assessment on how well Ridley Scott is bringing that idea to life, and how his conception of it sort of compares to some of the ancient evidence we have for this kind of thing happening. Well,
Lindsay Steenberg 20:18
I was very excited about it as well, and it has been the foremost question that I've been asked, you know, by colleagues, by students, just interested, friends, going there, they didn't flood the Colosseum, how that's so unrealistic, and they kind of see it as this way over the top spectacle. And when I say no, they they did. This was a thing that happened. There were naval battles. People watched them. People are a bit astonished. Now, I
Dr G 20:41
can't, I can't
Lindsay Steenberg 20:43
testify to any evidence that sharks were involved. I think they're sort of quite how did they transport the where was the tank? There's many, many of this would mean
Dr G 20:52
that the salt the water in the Colosseum would need to be salt water. It seems very unlikely. A
Lindsay Steenberg 20:58
little tricky, a little tricky, but the fact that it's within the realm of possibility, I think that is something that is I was like, Yes, I want to see this. I want, I want all that CGI has to offer to bring this spectacle to me. Because I have seen naval battles in other gladiator films. I think I can only recall one I looked at my list before speaking to you, there is a 19 I've wrote it down, 1962 film called The Last Days of Herculaneum, or the destruction of Herculaneum, depending on the translation and they have, they stage a naval battle. Our hero is going undercover as a gladiator for reasons we we don't need to know. There is a lot, it doesn't matter. But he goes and they have this, and it is a low budget Italian- French co-production. So this is the days of those cheap muscle men, Italian films, which are kind of joyful and really fun to watch. And he goes and there's a pond, and they stage a full sort of canoe battle with, you know, all the finest that you know, homespun low budget gladiator movies had to offer. So I found that was one of the most memorable gladiator moments that I recall out of all the Italian movies that I watched, Steve Reeves, the former Mr. Universe, Breaking Chains and stuff and throwing trees. I'm like, no, no, I was in it for that pond battle. That was great. It was slightly awkward as they all tried to fight on tiny boats, but that sort of shows you the what if you just got together, grabbed a camera and some rafts and tried on the pond, versus Ridley Scott's imagining of all the tools and the toys and the spectacles and the islands and the sharks and the arrows and the fire. So I, sort of part of me, wanted it to be even more over the top. We're here. We're on the water. Let's make it happen. I mean, we know that it's a possibility, so let's just roll with that. But I expect he had to sort of temper his his shock and awe vision to be able to still tell a story, because it's hard to make the human element stand out in that kind of a naval battle. Naval battles, I think, are often quite tricky in terms of staging a fight scene. You have to be on the two sides. If they're just shooting at each other from their opposite boats. That's a different kind of scenario. If you want the stakes to be personal, they have to go on each other's boats. They have to get close enough. So I think in that sense, it did work. People who I saw the film with suggested that it was very video game like that. That moment seemed a little bit like an Assassin's Creed video game. So I think there was something kind of like, this is the next level to it as well. But I think they, I think they did a good job. I enjoyed it. I like I said, I would have liked even more just, I throw it all, throw it all at a water fight scene. I
Dr Rad 23:45
have to ask, What? What is more? What is more? On top of islands and sharks and ramming, it could have
Lindsay Steenberg 23:49
been islands. It could have been sure. I mean, we could have brought some, some women right into the amphitheater, and perhaps an emperor could have fallen at least one of them. I mean, there were two. There's a spare. Let's get, let's get Caracalla.
Dr Rad 24:00
Let's have one of them drown. Yeah, maybe
Lindsay Steenberg 24:03
some
Dr G 24:04
nunchucks falls onto a boat. Yeah?
Lindsay Steenberg 24:08
An explosion or two, like, bring Michael Bay on to consult, something could explode.
Dr Rad 24:12
You're right. You know, we've also had the Colosseum actually start to collapse and the crowds start to fall into, you know,
Lindsay Steenberg 24:21
the crowd falling in later. So that was, yeah, more, maybe more sort of Errol Flynn style, like ropes, a little, little swinging in there as
Dr G 24:31
well. Yeah, missed opportunity that one. So, yeah, it was, it
Lindsay Steenberg 24:34
was enough. It was definitely excessive. But somebody could have ridden a shark,
Dr Rad 24:38
yeah, you say Right? Because that was the main thing that people have said to me, they're like sharks gamma.
Lindsay Steenberg 24:43
I mean, yes, like I said, I don't think there were sharks, but there could have been other that they have reported, other animals, look
Dr G 24:50
but the thing that I've talked to people about, and I firmly stand by, is that if the Romans could have put sharks in there, they would have
Lindsay Steenberg 24:59
that's a. Exactly what I said. I'm like, Look, if they could find a way to get a shark into an amphitheater, they would have been 100% behind it. They've been a yes,
Dr G 25:09
very keeping in the spirit of the Romans, could
the sharks fight each other? They would have found a way to make this happen. So
Dr Rad 25:15
really, the great tragedy of this is that the Romans themselves will never see this movie. They will
Lindsay Steenberg 25:20
never see the movie about themselves, although, I mean, when it comes to sort of Rome on screen, the interesting thing is that that, of course, it is, is rarely about Rome. Gladiator is as much about America as it is about Ancient Rome and what we think it was like. So the heroism we see there is very American. Yes,
Dr Rad 25:38
it's okay. So now that you brought this up, I definitely would love to probe a little bit more about this, because one of the things I felt after seeing gladiator two, I didn't like it as much as the first film, and I felt that it was because it was kind of a typical sequel, you know, and that the villains were worse, the explosions were bigger, you know, There was more action, but I felt there was a little less heart and soul and story, and like the main character, for me, was lacking. I mean, as kind of laughable sometimes, as Maximus is, in some ways, there's something so strangely compelling about him, as characterized by Russell Crowe, which I did not find with Lucius so much as I did with fake characters like Macrinus. And I also felt that the first gladiator did have a more obvious commentary on contemporary America and that sort of thing with its I always got the impression that it was sort of talking about how the American people are distracted from politics and what is really going on by entertainment and those sorts of messages, which actually sort of stem a little bit from, obviously, what some of the critics of ancient Rome said as well about their own society. So I'm curious to know what you think about gladiator two and what it speaks to at this moment in time.
Lindsay Steenberg 26:57
Yeah, absolutely. The first one did seem to be a very kind of, you know, it's putting a toga on something, but it is commenting on, what is it like to live in a spectacle driven society? What's it like to kind of worship celebrities, to create a celebrity who becomes so powerful that even the Emperor can't give them a thumbs down. That idea, the sort of the Oliver Reed moment where he says, You know, I didn't succeed because I was the best. I succeeded because I was the most loved. I was most famous. To me, that was an excellent kind of way of thinking about how this fighter performer worked, and how celebrity can be built and manipulated. Whereas there was, I thought that there was going to be a little bit of the similar kind of thing, you know, Lucius would be built up as this celebrity gladiator and and that celebrity would be something that we could think about that seemed to have been emptied a little bit. Yes, he was famous. They were chanting. They liked him, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. They also quite liked Pedro Pascal's character as this heroic general, but that didn't seem to be something we were thinking about. So it did seem to be a little bit emptied out of some of the more poetic, allegorical moments that the film had, which I found a bit disappointing, because, you know, a nice ancient allegory worked so well, and that idea that the barbarians are at the gate, or, sort of, you know, something is falling, we're under threat. That's something that that gladiator really wanted to think about, you know, what happens when the Empire Falls? What happens if we imagine something beyond this kind of rule? Whereas I found that sort of Lucius speeches were sort of, they don't end tyranny, which is, yes, nobody wants tyranny, but it didn't seem to be very specific. It didn't seem to speak to the moment of what would happen after. So I was a bit disappointed for that missing satire commentary. I was sad when Maximus died. I mean, he was a bit funny sometimes, you're right, he was a bit over the top, and his trauma was so over the top. My name is Gladiator, and I loved it. I loved that melodrama, and I did feel moved when he died. And you know, he was this dream of Rome. Could it ever be good enough to sort of be worthy of his death? Of course not. There was no, no real sacrifice that we were meant to mark in the second one, because Lucius didn't die. Maybe it would have been better if he died. Do I sound horrible, because then he would have fallen again for Rome, and you know, Pedro Pascal's general didn't that that moment didn't have enough gravity and weight to really make us be like, oh, oh, okay, we've lost something here. And you know, why was he there? Why did they want to stop their takeover of Rome to save Lucius? It some of the things were sort of missing in that it was, I think, standard run of the mill, mid level gladiator Movie. Yeah, what it didn't do was chew the scenery too much that I was expecting. I thought that Denzel Washington was going to go full Oliver Reed. He didn't like, like Kiefer Sutherland in Pompeii. I thought he was going to go, yes, he he sort of held a kind of emotional center in the movie that. So it didn't spin out of control. But yeah, I think I don't know whether it depends on when you see it. You know, if I saw it when I was younger, and I hadn't seen a film like it, does that make it more impactful? So maybe if I were 15 years old, seeing this film, knowing Paul Mezcal from other shows, like normal people, I would feel like I did in sort of watching the first film. I'm not sure if it is, but I do feel it was a bit a bit more superficial than the first Yeah.
Dr Rad 30:46
And it felt like it was divided between Lucius, Lucilla and the general, as he's so often called, Pedro Pascal character, gotta have a call in the game, just the general. Yeah. It just felt like it was maybe more divided between them, whereas the first film, it was really all centered on Maximus, even though there were other people who got involved, like Gracchus and Lucilla and that sort of thing. This one, I felt like it was, again, like a typical sequel. There were more distractions and rabbit holes, and there was just, there was just less to root for, I think, with Lucius, you know. And it was just Yeah, I was that was actually the main thing that disappointed me. It wasn't so much the you know, as you say, the arena sequences were executed really well in terms of their cinematography and the spectacle and that sort of thing. But I just felt I was lacking that, that classic gladiator message that films like Spartacus and glad he had to have, yeah,
Dr G 31:42
if I may, I think the reason why you might be disappointed is because the general represents the kind of vision that Maximus was attempting to pursue but was unable to fulfill through his death in the arena, and for him to exit the film so suddenly means that actually, that that narrative aspect is completely lost, and all we're left with now is what we now know is the idea of the natural Imperial inheritance that has already been laid out by Marcus Aurelius through Commodus. And we know how that goes, and it doesn't go well, so there's not a lot of optimism Fauci is coming into this. No, even though he's very angry and he's filled with rage, he's still a prince of Rome. And are we supposed to go for those guys? Because the other ones that we've got on show in this movie, Caracalla and Geta, not, not great, exactly. They're
Lindsay Steenberg 32:39
not, they're not great. They're standard Roman villains. They're, you know, excessive and effeminate, which, you know, classical Hollywood often equates with sort of perversity. Yeah, the notion that it is this ATRA lineal kind of inheritance, like he's his destiny is to be Prince of Rome. It felt like what I kept thinking, what Weren't we going for a republic was that I thought we were talking about a republic. No, yeah, we're good.
Dr Rad 33:04
And there's so much that's left unexplained about, you know, they just have this, you know, this scene where Lucille hurries Lucius out of the arena after Maximus and Commodus both die to get him to safety, to explain how he exists and how this whole storyline is possible. But there's no explanation about Well, why didn't Gracchus and the rest of the senators step up and do what they wanted to do in that power vacuum moment? How on earth did Caracalla and Geta ever get into power where did they come from? Exactly, there's a total lack of any, you know, connecting the dots there, which, which is why it's so frustrating. Because you're like, I don't understand. It seemed like Maximus was getting there. I felt like the only moment where there was a possibility for something similar was when the general dies. Although I didn't really love the timing of that. When Lucius says, Is this how Rome treats its heroes? I'm like, Okay, well, that's a little that's something a little bit different. There was maybe some possibilities there in terms of some, you know, some commentary about how, you know, people can be treated, particularly how good people are treated in more corrupt societies. But again, it never went anywhere. He just, he just died. And that was that it wasn't really followed through in any major way.
Lindsay Steenberg 34:22
I think some of it, too is down to the shorthand that Marcus Aurelius has as a good emperor, and the sort of recent movement towards sort of popular or vernacular stoicism. So, you know, there are places on the internet where it's called broicism. It is this kind of popular, populist philosophy where, you know, it's used a lot people like martial artists or MMA fighters. So you've got the sense that Marcus Aurelius is a good philosopher king, and that Lucius, you don't have to answer the questions because he is. Angry and stoic at the same time. So it isn't that you want to get rid of the kings, it's you just want a good one, not a bad one, which I think to me, even though I knew that Commodus wasn't going to die and leave a republic in his wake, because we may have studied a little bit of history here, I loved that. That's what they went for, that they were like, You know what? We don't want a good king. We don't want a bad king. We want no king, no king. So this one kind of backpedaled on that a little bit. So I thought, Oh, you could have, especially since the two emperors were awful and, you know, have this interesting moment in US leadership there, there was, there was room to do some interesting things that they sort of
Dr Rad 35:39
picked away Exactly, yeah, and Caracalla and geta don't have the backstory that Commodus does as much as Commodus is obviously Caligula 2.0 in the way that they've presented him. You understand very clearly that he has this tortured relationship with his father and never living up to expectations and so and he just has this desperate desire for love and family and connection and so. And maybe it's also partly down to how Joaquin Phoenix obviously played him, because he's a brilliant actor, but you have a certain amount of sympathy and understanding for Commodus, even whilst you totally know he's the bad guy wheras Caracalla and Geta again, there is nothing redeeming these guys nothing, and they have such interesting back stories in real life. It's crazy to me that that none of that was used a real
Dr G 36:30
missed opportunity. I
Lindsay Steenberg 36:31
was gonna say you could hear the difference in the two films too, because in the first film, the the music that you know, the scoring, had the really, meaty themes for Commodus and for Maximus. And, you know, I've read a really interesting article about how the entire film, you hear it, and it is these two motifs coming together and then moving apart. And it's this struggle between two interesting men struggling for power and paternal love, whereas the scoring in the second film, I heard the ghost of some of the classic themes from the original, but didn't quite set up its own unique motifs and identity for its characters. So in some ways, you could hear the difference in the story as much as you could see it. You didn't get those really notable kind of kind of motifs sliding through the film.
Dr G 37:23
I think, yeah, this is one of those things where it's like, do you have Hans Zimmer and his team on board, or do you not have
Lindsay Steenberg 37:31
he's some some film music. People don't care for him very much. But the score of gladiator was really and then Lisa Gerrard, I think that her contribution there, I think really raised it. It just makes a big difference for how you remember the film, and how the film kind of prompts you to feel, and for the scoring in that, yeah,
Dr Rad 37:49
I shouldn't really venture an opinion here, because I'm I cannot to be unbiased, because I actually walked down the aisle to the theme from Gladiator.
Lindsay Steenberg 37:58
It's a very memorable theme.
Dr Rad 38:00
It is
Lindsay Steenberg 38:02
the the much talked about similar melody to the Pirates of the Caribbean fight theme to the to the music and Gladiator I mean, you just have to kind of hum that, and people are ready to find their swords that it's, yeah, it's not exciting. So it was a huge part of that. And I don't recall kind of fight moment with the same musical kind of weight to it. It felt a little bit, you know, I'm not a musicologist, but it felt a lot like the kinds of scoring that you used to see in biblical epic epics from Hollywood, quite orchestral. And I was sort of like, okay, I recognize this. It's just I can't remember it once it's over. And I like to remember the music and think, okay, yeah, that makes me feel like I'm I'm ready for an amphitheater fight. Well,
Dr Rad 38:45
when you think about some of the more notable gladiator films from the past, and I am going to go to Spartacus, just because it's the one I know best, yep, but should Spartacus has that very memorable scoring all throughout it from Alex north, and I know that for some younger people these days, it's a bit much, because there is music every single moment, yeah. But they have, as you say, they've, they very clearly had themes for each character. You know, virinius theme is beautiful. It's a really lovely piece of music. And even though I can see it, I can see that, okay, yeah, that maybe it's a little too much music, but at the same time, it gives the film such a signature, and I only have to hear a few notes, and I'm I'm right back watching that movie, because it does just work like that, I suppose, in our brain. So yeah, I think that there is a lot to be said for scoring, even though it's kind of a bit of an invisible, yeah, part of a movie,
Lindsay Steenberg 39:38
the scoring. And then the other thing that's quite invisible, which I'm always paying attention to, is the stunt performance. So I'm fascinated by the way that that spectacle it, you know, it wasn't just Denzel, Washington, Pedro, Pascal and Paul mescale. It was all of the stunt performers who did an astonishing job of jumping out of boats and, you know, grappling on the sands. So you. I thought that part of it was, was pretty astonishing, but there would have been no point in fighting the twin emperors. They weren't, you know, they're not like Commodus, who we, I think we all know, or most people know, wanted to be a gladiator. So he has, like, you knew it was gonna, it was all coming to that we are gonna find this final battle in the Colosseum. Whereas, you know, not, not so much the similar kind of sort of gladiatorial backstory for the for the
Dr G 40:28
one. And to hone in a little bit, because I think Macrinus is my favorite character in Gladiator and my theory is that he's actually the protagonist of this film. Yeah, he's the one who is demonstrably acting in ways that further plot points, and we see his whole arc across the course of this film as well. And I'm wondering if when we're thinking about it, rather than focusing on our disappointment with maybe what felt like a bit of a flat Lucius, unfortunately, despite, I think, a really workable performance from Paul Mescal. Instead, we get a really sort of shining light with Macrinus, who seems comfortable in his costumes, and, you know, is owning every room that he moves into, and is finding ways to make things happen for him rather than against him, when it could go either way, really, before he gets there. I'm wondering how this might be a useful way to think about this film. I
Lindsay Steenberg 41:25
think so. And I think Denzel Washington's performance really did stand out in this film, like he was interesting, he was baffling in some ways, because at one point I thought, well, he wants the same thing as Lucius. Let's topple Rome. Let's do it. Let's go and I think that's what he wanted. We're not sure why, and I sort of like that. They never gave him a tragic backstory or tried to kind of bulk that up. It was just, this is what I'm doing. This is politics. I am the puppet master. I, you know, I will manipulate everybody to get what I want. So I think if you look at it from that journey, at first I thought he was going to be the Oliver Reed. He was going to sort of give him a pep top, be the coach, you know, get in there. But he wasn't. And he was, he was evil in a pretty great way. So I think that it was that one performance that all the other ones sort of circulated around. He did not, though, have that kind of physicality where it was going to end in a fist fight, even though it ended in a sword fight, I guess so. I think that if you look at it from he is this canny, disappointed, cynical, almost motiveless kind of angry revolutionary. I think that that makes it a much more interesting film. That makes it something to go. What, whoa, okay. What? Okay, Denzel take us along for the ride. So I do think he was the more interesting character. And he did own all the rooms, although sometimes I it did seem like he was wrestling his his clothes a little, and I was sort of like, okay, and I found that a lot of the upper class people, with the exception of Connie Nielsen's Lucilla, did seem to wrestle their clothes a little. And I sort of figured that this must be deliberate, and that, you know, the gladiators with their almost no clothes, they can move, they can stand, they can be embodied, whereas the upper class characters are struggling with togas and and trying to kind of manage themselves, whereas, you know, the Denzel mostly just sat there looking like, yeah, okay, unfold in front of me. I've made this Yeah,
Dr G 43:31
I look I feel like the toga is a bit of a constraining garment at the best of times. It's a bit awkward, it's a bit heavy. Does get in your way? So it does make the Senate an easy target if you're planning a revolution, but it doesn't seem anybody's taking real advantage of that. Unfortunately.
Lindsay Steenberg 43:48
I mean, I almost missed it that they paraded the senators with Lucilla into the amphitheater for execution. I almost missed that. I was like, Who are they? Oh, okay, those are the senators. Okay, like they seem to be less important than they were in the first one and that no, you know, nobody. None of the senators were fighting. None of them seemed very good at puppet mastering. They were outmaneuvered completely by Denzel Washington's character, by the monkey, even like they they didn't have
Dr G 44:17
a clout. Their job seemed to be to roll over when required to
Lindsay Steenberg 44:22
do what somebody said. You know, Lucilla said this, okay. You know, Denzel Washington says this, okay.
Dr Rad 44:28
You got well, Macrinus is such an interesting choice because this is not my area of specialty, this time period. But from what I am, from what I know, Macrinus is a bit of a blank slate of a historical figure. I mean, we know some things about him, but we don't know as much as we would like. So And certainly, there were problems when he became involved in Imperial politics because of his lowly background. But he certainly wasn't as low as the movie seems to indicate. You know, they've, I think they've tried to heighten the drama by I think it would be hard for a modern audience to really get. On board with the idea that, Oh, he was equestrian and not from a senatorial family, or how disgusting that he was really equally rich class.
Lindsay Steenberg 45:08
Is he middle class? Can we do that? Yeah, exactly.
Dr Rad 45:12
Whereas trying to give him this other backstory where he, you know, came from nothing, and then, you know, took himself to the top. I think that was meant to be the drama of it, the self made American man, exactly. Americans love a bit of rugged individualism, you know? They
Lindsay Steenberg 45:27
really do. And he, yeah, the hold himself up by his bootstraps. This, this is, these are heroic qualities. They've come to be villainous qualities as well, but often in action films where we're supposed to wonder about the motives of the villain. I'm thinking about Black Panther, or something like that, villains who, you know, made something of themselves from nothing in an unjust system. So he has that kind of backstory. But yes, it would not have worked if they were like, actually, he had a house like this. He didn't need to steal the other guys. Yeah, and that would have been okay for him, and he had power, just not as much. So, you know, we need the story. The underdog is a really important character archetype, and often in cinema, people have to work really hard to make their characters be underdogs. So, you know, you can just throw them in an amphitheater, and that works because they're automatically on the sand, not up in the stands, but giving them that pull themselves up by their bootstrap story is a good one that
Dr Rad 46:28
might, that might turn to our earlier conversation about America. Perhaps, maybe that was meant to be something there and just wasn't emphasized enough for it to come through.
Lindsay Steenberg 46:36
Yeah. I mean, heroic kind of conventions are so interesting, what we think of as a heroic quality and who we want to be our heroes that is very, very specific. Even if a the kind of gladiator as a man forced to fight against his will is pretty standard, who he is and what he get represents, does shift quite a lot depending on if you're looking at an Italian story from the 50s or the 60s, are you looking at like an Asian tournament film from the 1980s so much changes into in what we think is heroic that it's interesting to kind of trace it back to that, that kind of national specificity of where that hero is made and who he's supposed to appeal to.
Dr Rad 47:17
That's actually a perfect segue for us to talk about the idea of the gladiator and celebrity, which you did allude to before, when we were talking about Maximus and that sort of thing, but we would love to know a little bit more about the relationship between gladiators and celebrity on film, especially because we know that gladiators had a very interesting position in Roman society as someone who was both disgusting but also embodying certain Roman values that were much admired and were meant to kind of inspire in terms of when they were performing
Lindsay Steenberg 47:51
absolutely that that double status of them. I think that that speaks to exactly how we view celebrities, from a Kardashian to a sports celebrity. The idea that somebody is both, you know, a bit of a train wreck, but also somebody to admire and imitate is, I think, you know, a kind of quite an ancient formulation that stuck that notion that a gladiator is sort of the best and the worst of a society and somehow mixed together. I think that is also really interesting, and that's something that I've wanted to analyze and talk about, because over, you know, quite frankly, hundreds of films, television shows, adverts, the gladiator is when you see a gladiator character, you know right away that you're in a world that's corrupt and falling so you see him, you're like, oh, barbarians are at the gate. The Apocalypse is going to happen. That's Maximus. That's katnius, Everdeen, whoever it is, you see the Gladiator, like, Oh, we're forcing people to fight for fun. It's the end of the world. But they're also simultaneously the best of their world. If you're facing an apocalypse, whether it's Vesuvius or a nuclear war, you find a gladiator, you make friends with them, and they will see you through because they they say that the apocalypse is happening just seeing them, and that they're the one who can, uniquely with their particular set of skills, survive the apocalypse. So they're the best and the worst at all times. So I think that there is something that remains the idea that a celebrity is somebody who we want to imitate and admire and even who has influence over us, but at the same time we're deeply suspicious of that's really easy to talk about when we have infamous celebrities and the whole True Crime boom, and how we've come to elevate serial murderers as celebrities. That's like the tail end of that spectrum. That's way over there. Whereas a gladiator uses violence to make themselves famous, we love them. We admire them. Sometimes, maybe even the Romans wanted to be them. So there, I believe that there are records of aristocrats really wanting to try their hand at being a gladiator, but at the same time to. Put yourself and your body on display for entertainment is kind of quite taboo, and I love that they often found themselves in the same category as actors and even as sex workers, because that is something that has continued and many gladiator fictions, from the sort of television Spartacus to the Pompeii film they do enmesh the kind of sex work and gladiators as a similar category, and that's often another moment of spectacle that's layered on top of the violence is the sexuality of the believing that when
Dr Rad 50:33
I get to see it, there is an allusion to it in the first gladiator film, obviously that scene between Maximus And Lucilla. And obviously, at some point they did have relationship, although not when he was Gladiator, to be fair, as we now know, because of Lucius, all revealed. It's all revealed. I actually, genuinely did not see that coming. I didn't think that that was a thing. I mean,
Lindsay Steenberg 50:55
it, they kind of dropped it like it wasn't a thing, but it was, I mean, maybe hinted in the first movie that Lucilla and Maximus, they definitely had a relationship at some point, totally, but I don't know that we were ever supposed to believe that Lucius was Maximus son. But this one, they were just like, yippee. Is
Dr Rad 51:12
totally Yeah. No, exactly, I thought so too. I was like, Whoa. Okay, you seem very certain about this all of a sudden,
Dr G 51:17
yeah, if you weren't paying attention, yeah, exactly.
Dr Rad 51:21
There's trinkets being passed down.
Lindsay Steenberg 51:25
There's heirlooms. What? Yeah, did this happen? Just
Dr G 51:28
to recap on the first season, he's the son.
Lindsay Steenberg 51:32
Spoilers, he's the son. I mean, in some of this is when I was researching for the book on Gladiators, I came across the unrealized screenplay for a gladiator two that was written by Nick Cave,
Dr Rad 51:45
oh yes, I did see this referred to in your book, and I was so intrigued.
Lindsay Steenberg 51:50
I mean, I'll be honest that no gladiator two could ever live up to the absolute insanity that was part of that screenplay. And Nick Cave, I think he has said, like, I wrote it because I knew they'd never make it. I just knew they wouldn't. And Lucius was in it. He was in it. He was not Maximus son, but he was in it. And if I recall the screenplay correctly, the afterlife, there's gods, and it ends with like a 25 minute montage of Maximus fighting in every single war in history, like from the trenches of World War One to Vietnam, to the Civil War, like, just, let's give up. Let's just put this celebrity gladiator in every battle ever, and sit back and watch. And I was like, you know, and win. I would have watched that,
Dr Rad 52:34
you know. I saw Lucius being a character. I did. I thought as soon as I heard that there was going to be a secret, which I never thought there would be because of the way that the first one ended. But as soon as I heard I thought, yeah, for sure, Lucius is going to be a character. But never thought he was going to be a character in this way. I again, kind of wish they'd done something different with him. But thinking about Lucius, and again, going back to this idea that he was not quite the same as Maximus. Why is it you think that Maximus was built up so successfully as this sort of celebrity fighter, and yet in Gladiator two, it's, again, it's a little bit more muddled. You know, he is, as you say, he does earn his stripes in the arena, but it's just never quite as focused and clear as it is in the first film,
Lindsay Steenberg 53:22
I think it maybe is that they gave up on thinking about celebrity a little bit. So the first film they did have, you know, win the crowd. Win the crowd. You'll win your freedom. This is what you want, the dream of Rome. Win the crowd. In the second one, that wasn't quite as much a part of it. He was a good fighter, and that was enough, like it was, he was good at fighting, but he the kind of theatricality of what the battle was, and the fact that Maximus spectacle was that he hated them all and that he blamed them for the spectacle like that itself was a spectacle that we loved. We loved him being angry at us. That was great. Lucius was just kind of diffuse force of anger. He didn't it wasn't for a reason. It was just, I'm angry. I do all the fighting, all the fight. You just put someone in front of me, let a fight him. Whereas Maximus, I think that we often kind of read a lot of hesitation, like, I don't want to kill all you guys, or I'm protecting my friends, you know, stick with me. We will, we'll. We'll fight this battle. I saw that they wanted to build Lucius up as a leader, you know. They kept saying, you know, you need to lead your men. He gave the speeches. But that didn't seem to it didn't seem to stick as well as I think it probably did in the first film, you didn't get the same side characters, I think, like even if the gladiators, I can't recall, I can't recall all of their names, but he did have his friend, his very good friend. And then we saw, you know, a few of the same figures again and again. And we got a sense that there was a fraternity, that he was becoming closer. And that's something like in Spartacus. I am Spartacus. You have that fraternity, that crowd gathering around them, whereas Lucius had the one friend who was the doctor, but I and the one who died in the first arena fight. But I didn't get the sense of his, his family of gladiators with him in the same way that I did in the first one. And of course, in all the Spartacus, the Sparta chi, the many Spartacus films, TV shows, retellings, just that, that that brotherhood didn't seem to be quite where it could have been. I think
Dr G 55:33
they, they did definitely try to shortcut that by having a Spartacus esque moment.
Lindsay Steenberg 55:38
They so had a Spartacus moment. And when I was in the cinema, everybody giggled. It was
Dr G 55:41
like, Yeah, and I think, I think that's a reasonable response, because the back work on the additional characters in the gladiator troupe wasn't there to justify them all sort of taking part in that moment and being willing to step in and defend Lucius in that way. We didn't have a reason for that to be true. So I think that's why it felt, felt flat and maybe a little bit comedic. Yeah,
Dr Rad 56:06
whereas Maximus is so clearly someone who's earnt the loyalty and the trust of the men around him, and they clearly, they clearly adore him. Same thing with Spartacus, but yeah, you don't ever really get that with Lucius. It's kind of like, Why does everybody care about this guy?
Lindsay Steenberg 56:21
We're just gonna follow him to our Yeah. Okay. I mean, sure. Why not? Gladiator movies are written in shorthand, so I you know there's, there's often not time. I guess what gladiator the original one was, wasn't a bit of an exception. It was a bit of a gladiator movie that did offer you a backstory, that did think through things like male friendship and things like that. Whereas most gladiator movies are sort of delightfully one dimensional, it's like, what are we fighting for? For fighting? That's why we're here. You know, why do you fight? Because I can, like, there doesn't need to be too much complexity necessarily behind the fictions. So I sort of, when I came out of the theater, I was like, Gladiator two is a gladiator movie, like so many others. It has the same things. It has the same conventions, the same short hands. Everything feels familiar. It's just, I think that they're the first gladiator film was a bit of an exception. The trauma was more melodramatic. You know, there's also theorists have sort of noticed a break around that time too. The sort of the world has already fallen and we're all doomed that comes from Maximus onward. So we just, you know, we've just accepted that our hero is always sad. He's never going to get another wife. He's too sad. She's dead. All ladies don't matter to him, because he only fights. He has no time for romance, whereas the kind of pre millennial Gladiator, even Conan, even Conan the Barbarian, is kind of being raised as a gladiator, still gets a little bit of romance. He still has a bit of joy. He gets a sequel as well. So you get a little bit more playfulness and joy in the pre millennial gladiator who bite gladiate because he likes it. Why do you fight? It's awesome. I love fighting. The second sort of iteration is, oh, I'm sad, and I have to, and they're making me and then I'll die. So there is a kind of break in there. Whereas, you know, I think Paul Mescal was enjoying himself. He looked sad, but it felt like he liked fighting. So it was a bit of a throwback to the more traditional, actually, and it's
Dr Rad 58:23
interesting that you bring up the ladies side of thing, because I felt that that was, again, another aspect that was inexplicable, and that was his relationship with Lucilla as his mother, because that was the real relationship. But it went from being completely one way where he was like, Get out of my set. You were banished me. You mean nothing to me. I don't even remember who you are, mother who I'm sorry you didn't raise me. And then all of a sudden it was like, I would die for you. I would do anything for you, just like, what is happening. And that is an unusual That's an unusual turn events, because we don't often have the mother of a gladiator as a
Lindsay Steenberg 59:03
there are no mothers in Gladiator movies. They have all been killed, all of them. Yeah, she was really interesting. And I did enjoy her performance. She had a kind of, you know, dignity that's normally lacking in a gladiator movie. So I thought Connie Nielsen did a great job reprising her role. He switched with her, the way he did with the Pedro Pascal character, with the sort of, all, you know, I hate you. You replaced my father, kind of very Oedipal sort of struggle, like, how very dare you come and steal my mom. But then was like, oh, but okay, in the same thing, I hate you, mom. Okay, no, I don't. So it was a very kind of strange turn of events. And they did have her, you know, all in white on the sort of sacrificial thing, so that it was clear that she was going to be this, this sacrifice, and she was going to be the tragedy that kept him burning for some time afterwards, although I was secretly hoping. Think that the ending would have been every man was dead, and she's like, well, Rome is mine. Obviously the best person for this
Dr Rad 1:00:08
job. It looked like that's where it was going for I thought it was going there. I
Lindsay Steenberg 1:00:11
got excited. Yeah, I also found it. You know, the most unrealistic thing that Hollywood did was not the sharks in the Colosseum. It was imagining a relationship where a woman was older than a man, so Connie Nielsen is a bit older than Pedro Pascal. That never happens. It happens so infrequently, and it's always such a big deal that people commenting, you know, Anne Hathaway is in a romance film with a much younger man. Oh, they didn't comment on it, and it was just there, and I was watching, going, are they going to say something? No, they're not. Okay, Googling it afterwards, just getting a very niche difference. She's just, she's just going to be the love interest of a younger man. Oh, she died. I'm not going to say it was because of that, but I found it was, like, one of those striking moments. I was like, okay, Gladiator, too interesting. So if they had let her keep her her Pedro Pascal and rural Rome, I would have decided that that was much more exciting at the end. I agree.
Dr G 1:01:12
It's a wrap up question, because I feel like we're heading in that direction now with with this sort of alternative ending, which that's a film I would love to see, was there any particular moments in this film that did drive you crazy in terms of historical accuracy?
Lindsay Steenberg 1:01:28
I mean, I think I'm probably better than most people at being able to put that on a bit of a back burner, because I'm a film scholar, and I'm a scholar who studies a lot of historical films, a lot of historical films that are so incorrect that it's you just, you get itchy, it drives you crazy, or you give up. So I do, I do know how to, you know, healthily, give up on historical accuracy. There are some things where I felt they missed a trick, because history was more interesting. I'm like, Why? Why didn't you go into the backstories of those emperors. That was a crazy stuff happening. I would have been really cinematic. Also, the why, where was their mom? I guess Lucilla was offered as a maternal character. Like at the end, Caracalla said, you know, do we? Do we have to kill her? So maybe. So they missed a few tricks, and also the the gender politics and hierarchy of the of the actual arena, like the way things might have been segregated, who sits where i It's so interesting, the way that a hierarchy can be written in space that way. I'm like, Come on, let's do it. Let's we're those Vestal virgins. We're always thinking about them.
Dr G 1:02:41
They seem to be in the Senate House. I'm sorry, but that's where they seem to be hanging out. Yeah, I
Lindsay Steenberg 1:02:46
guess so weird.
Dr Rad 1:02:48
Yeah. We both saw that woman and the dress the way that she was in the Senate scene. And we were like,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:02:52
is that a vessel? Yeah. And there were a few women sort of wearing white in the background, looking disapproving. And I sort of wondered, I'm like, is that? Is, are they the best? Is we could use her? She would be a great character. So I just, I think that it didn't, it didn't upset me that that, you know, there wouldn't have been sharks in the Colosseum, or that I knew that the story was different in history than it was in the film. It was more like history is such a wild ride in this time and in this place. Why wouldn't you want to go there? And I know that the historical consultant for the first film, I think she worked with them, and then sort of said, Could you not put my name on that? Actually? Yeah.
Dr Rad 1:03:34
Kathleen Coleman, yeah, she absolutely did. Like,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:03:38
I'm happy to be involved in films, but you might not have listened to what I was telling you, so I can understand that the first one was more accurate, and somehow it was more accurate. But yeah, so I think that the thing that that is is sort of often a disappointment is, is not necessarily the gladiatorial salute that never happened, or the the thumbs up, thumbs down. It's more like, oh man, you missed some amazing parts of history that would have been so cinematic. I do think, though, for my students, especially, the films are so visually arresting that they will replace history in our minds as a collective. So there's always when you watch these movies, it's not a risk, it's just an interesting function and effect that if you see something that is so astonishing, it kind of sits there in your brain and it's not going to shift. So even if you know there's no thumbs up, thumbs down, or you know that they weren't saying we are the moratorium, we are about to die, it's in there, and it's part of the myth, so it can replace so I don't get too mad when the history's off, but I do think there always needs to be a place where someone says, Actually, no, or actually, yeah, you could have, you could have brought the, you know, you could have flooded the Colosseum. So, yeah, that, I guess my fundamental thing is, movies are spectacle. They're not real. I love it when they do things that are over the top. They could bring more historical over the topness and. And But effectively, we always do have to have the moment of conversation where we say that Rome is beautiful, but that's a Rome that the American imagination in 2024 built out of computers and, you know, martial arts trained bodies. It's not necessarily telling us too much about Rome. Yeah, I
Dr Rad 1:05:17
think that's the thing. I also am very forgiving of historical films, because it's also what I like to focus on. But I must admit, when I see a film like this, where I feel like the major issue was the story and the characterization, because the technology was there, the money was there, the talent was there, both, you know, both in front of us in terms of the actors, but also behind the camera and putting all the bits and pieces together. There was just so much talent actually in this film. And I'm just like, why did you make it harder for yourself? Like you obviously struggled with the story
Lindsay Steenberg 1:05:52
more than anything about plot points, you were exactly your plot is all
Dr Rad 1:05:57
over the place. So why wouldn't you use what is actually there, because, you know what, it's already been crafted into a story by ancient historians who are probably making stuff up to and
Lindsay Steenberg 1:06:07
they knew their audience wanted to hear that as well. And they they knew how to tell a good story.
Dr Rad 1:06:12
Yeah. And I was a bit disappointed, actually. And I don't, I don't think of Ridley Scott is someone who is, I don't really know how I feel about this, actually, but Caracalla and geta being portrayed the way that they were in that white face makeup, given their ancestry, I was so confused as to why those actors were cast, and that was the makeup choice they went for, especially, again, in a film with Denzel Washington playing the krius. It just didn't make sense to me.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:06:44
What yet they did make it harder for themselves, and could have kind of Lent back on some of the stories that were or the mythology that's already there. I wonder if they felt shackled to the first film, because the story, you know, had that like and then he was a leader, and then the wife died, and it was captured, and he came to Rome, and he fought for Rome. So I wondered if they were thinking that they needed to stay so close to the film that they forgot that they're telling historical story.
Dr Rad 1:07:16
Yeah. Look, as you say, it's a fascinating addition, because Ridley Scott being someone who is an older director, and someone who grew up watching the original, like golden epics of Hollywood, you can definitely see those reference points in there if you know the history of film. But I think again, that's the weird thing. Like Gladiator, to me, is just the love child of Spartacus and full of the Roman Empire, you
Lindsay Steenberg 1:07:39
know, yeah, and Anthony Mann's film Fall of the Roman Empire does not get nearly enough credit for having influenced that film and for for just being an AWESOME film, really. So yeah, it absolutely was kind of those biblical epics, sort of those those Hollywood epics stuck together, but sad. So
Dr Rad 1:07:57
you think you'd think, really, Scott could therefore take his own film turned into something good too.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:08:03
It's like, What happened, man, what were you doing? And I mean, when you watch a Ridley Scott film, you often whatever you think about what's happening, you're like, Yeah, but it was visually amazing. And I yeah, I did think this one was arresting and spectacular. I'm glad I saw it in a big screen, but I think it did miss a little bit of its own stylization, like when you watch kingdom of heaven, you were like, Whoa. You know, I don't, I don't know why Liam neesons here, but I'm enjoying what I'm watching, and it's stylish and it's interesting. For this one, it was spectacle. It was good, but I sort of felt like it. It missed a little bit of what Ridley Scott used to be really good at, yeah, Blade Runner good at, yeah, that kind of esthetic that belongs to its own world and makes its own visual language. So this, this felt like I said, mid range gladiator film, which I will always watch,
Dr Rad 1:08:58
yeah, very watchable. Yeah, very watchable. But I think, to be honest, that actually was the same issue with his Napoleon for me, because that was so visually stunning.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:09:10
Yeah, amazing. No matter what you think of what's happening in that film, you're like, well, it looks amazing.
Dr G 1:09:18
I was so angry
Dr Rad 1:09:21
about it, because the acting was terrible. And again, it came down to the plot being a total mess, trying to do way too much.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:09:29
And again, history had a great plot there. Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:09:32
exactly it's, I don't know how he made Napoleon so dull it was, it was crazy. Yeah,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:09:43
I'm gonna keep in my pocket his reaction to historians watching the film, which I think is one of the funniest things a director's ever said, is, you know, people like, oh, it's not very accurate. It's not this. And he just said, f off. It's a movie. Yeah, guys, I was like, Okay. Ridley Scott, I see where you're going. I. Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:10:00
and it's, it's not that, as you say, it's not about the accuracy, per se. It's more that. I'm like, Well, if you can't come up with something better, then why wouldn't you go to the original story, which is good. That's why people want to see a film about Napoleon. You know that that's the issue I have. I'm like, well, by all means, go. Be fictional. Make it up. But yeah,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:10:19
make it crazy. Yeah, exactly. Give us a bit of bridgerton, sure. Fine. Yeah, absolutely. Why not? Yeah.
Dr G 1:10:25
I think this draws our attention to the really important role of the screenwriters and the creation of screenplays in general, and maybe what is going on inside the Hollywood system at this current epoch with script writing and the way these things get changed and altered to suit what seems to be like a committee like structure of like what needs to be in this film. And so instead of being able to tell an original story of gladiator two, which is a natural continuation of the point where the first film ended instead, what you get is a film that is trying to hit the same notes exactly, because that's what made that film a blockbuster, and that's what that's what made it great. So we've got to do that same story again, but now we've just got to have some slight alterations to see if we can enhance that spectrum. Repetition
Lindsay Steenberg 1:11:16
with variation. Works in movies. It works in myths. It works in novels. You know that must make that's a genre repetition with variation. But you have, you have to vary. You have to surprise people, even just a little as you give them what you want. So I don't, I mean, I've spent a lot of my career studying big franchises like Mission Impossible, like John Wick, even Fast and the Furious. And they have that. They're an ecosystem. They have that committee logic, where, you know, you have the one, and then you have to have this, but more this, but more, you know, now with nunchucks now on water, so you do have the logic. You just
Dr Rad 1:11:51
got to go to Tokyo drifting. Yeah, we're gonna get gladiator
Lindsay Steenberg 1:11:55
three. Tokyo Drift would still watch the chariot. There'll be chariot. There's got to be, like, a take on this, like, I want to see that. But then you do feel like what is missed, what loses is that what made the first one special was its variation, and you haven't varied it, so you've given me tried to make literally, what is the first one. And I think you're right about the screenwriters as well. I mean, in an era where, you know, Hollywood is striking because of things like AI, an AI can write a script to gladiator two, it will not be like Nick caves. It will not it'll probably be a little closer to this film that we saw. I'm not saying that an AI wrote this. They absolutely didn't, but the notion that you feed in the kind of familiar tropes and it pops out what you wanted, I think that's often just not enough for us as viewers, even though, historically, often the sequels do make more money than the first. So I'll be curious to see how gladiator two performs at the box office, because when I went to go see it. It was sold out. I have not gone to a cinema where I've been turned away and they've said, No, it's sold out. Or since the 90s, like, I couldn't believe it. I'm like, wow. Okay, that's amazing. So I will see it. Might be enough of a same thing we wanted, but slightly different this time on water that it makes a lot of money, in which case, even if we are feeling a little disappointed that we might get gladiator three Tokyo Drift too fast to gladiator something I would 100%
Dr Rad 1:13:35
like today, Gladiator film where they're too fast and too furious. I would watch that. Well, I think that's probably a perfect note to end up on with our wishes for the future. Dear Ridley, Scott, do you have another one in you? Thank you chariot racing, exactly. Yep. Thank you so much for coming and chatting to us all about the gladiator movies, and Gladiator two in particular, it has been a complete delight. Is there anything that you'd like to tell us about that you are working on that we should keep our eyes peeled for in terms of articles or books or anything like that? Okay,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:14:07
a little shameless self promotion time. Yeah. I guess I think what has been so interesting for me that I'm working on right now is modern interpretations of gladiators that kind of stand out as metaphors for precarious workers in our kind of gig economy. So I've been very interested in things like squid game, very interested in reality TV shows where people gladiate, there's a there's a British show called Romans, Oh,
Dr Rad 1:14:35
yeah.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:14:37
Quite interested in the way that like metaphors like freelancer and stuff like that have become so entrenched in the way we talk about precarious employment. So yeah, I'm, I'm quite interested in writing about things like squid game and and finding out how gladiators have really kind of embedded themselves in our in our in our lives, in sort of like Anglo American and Australian culture.
Dr Rad 1:14:58
Well, that sounds fascinating. We are here for that excellent
Lindsay Steenberg 1:15:01
look forward to squid game two.
Dr Rad 1:15:03
Yeah, it'll come. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and we look forward to perhaps talking to you again when gladiator three eventually makes its appearance on our screens. That would be my pleasure.
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