Having gotten the taste of historical podcasts, I checked out some Roman ones. I started with “History of Rome” by Mike Duncan, simply because I’d read his Lafayette biography and listened into his “Revolutions” podcast, but while “History of Rome” is okay, I like Emperors of Rome, an Australian podcast, much better. Despite the title, which I suspect came to be because Duncan got there first, this podcast isn’t just about the Emperors, it has several extensive miniseries about the Republic as well, and within the Empire devotes a lot of listening time to the women, too, not to mention episodes on slavery, sex, Roman law, witches, and of course the various “antagonists” of Rome over the centuries. (With the occasional episode about famous historical fiction, like the movie “Spartacus”, or “I, Claudius”.) But the icing of the cake is the format, because it’s in dialogue, with the host Mike Smith interviewing various historians about the subject du jour, mainly but not exclusively Dr. Rhiannon Evans and Dr. Caillan Davenport. I was also very pleased that Agrippina (the Younger) got two episodes, with Emma Southon, whose Agrippina biography I liked a lot, as the interview partner.


(Don’t get me wrong: Duncan is a good narrator, which is why I listened through most of his “Revolutions” podcast already. But maybe because I know a bit more about Roman history than, say, about the Mexican Revolution, the interview format of “Emperors of Rome” works better for me. Also: this podcast is really good in balancing the awareness of source bias - and pointing out who wrote what and with which distance to the era under debate - and interesting storytelling.)


Anyway, dipping in and out of centuries of Roman history reminded me again and in some cases filled in details I did not yet know about the absolute insanity of the Third Century Crisis, when you had 25 Emperors in ca. 50 years because no sooner did one guy elevated by his troops in one corner of the Empire did the next crisis and backstabbing knife wait in the other. Also, years ago someone commented on my journal there should be a Death of Stalin like black comedy about the year of the Five Emperors, and I could so see that. In fact, I also want a "Death of Stalin" like miniseries for the entire Severan Dynasty, which, as Emma Southon points out on the podcast, should really be called the second Julian dynasty, given the three most important people in it making it a dynasty rather than a one off event were Julia Domna, Julia Maesa and Julia Mamaea.

Mind you, that family feels like someone in current days has made a wish for a Roman dynasty started by Rome's first African Emperor and Syrian Empress, with (three) powerful female characters who get to actually govern and don't get their power taken away again a la Agrippina, and got then got massively monkeypawed. All this happens, but Julia Domna has to live through getting one of her sons murdered in her arms by the other one and years later either starves herself to death or gets starved to death, Julia Soaemias gets murdered together with her son (Elagabal), Julia Mamaea gets murdered with her son (Severus Alexander) - the only one who dies on top, of natural causes and when the family prospects are looking good is Julia Maesa, Julia Domna's sister who organized the family comeback and got immortalized as "grandmother of Emperors" for her trouble - , and even if you write off some of the more gruesome tales about Caracalla and Elagabal to hostile senatorial historians, what remains is still pretty ghastly. Caracalla was the one who murdered brother Geta in Julia Domna's arms, forbade her to mourn for him but then let her do most of the administrative governing, since he was mostly into the military stuff (which he wasn't actually good at, but he loved hanging out with the troops and since he paid them more than any previous Emperor, he was very very popular there) when he wasn't organizing massacres among civilians for mocking him. Elagabal made Nero look like a wonder of self discipline and moderation, with the result that grandma Julia Maesa could see which way the wind was blowing, made him adopt his cousin Severus Alexander and washed her hands of him and her daughter Julia Soaemias whereupon they were gruesomely murdered, but the dynasty continued with little Severus Alexander as Emperor and Julia Maesa and Mulia Mamaea ruling for him. Basically, the only way I can see that story told and not come across as GrimDarkOverdrive is in a black comedy way.

Lastly: Rhiannon Evans is a Doctor Who watcher who when discussing slavery points out something about the Fires of Pompeii I don't think I ever consciously noticed, despite having rewatched the episode at least three times (it's a favourite). She likes it, too, but as she correctly says, it's noticable that one one owns a slave there, especially not the nice family with whom the Doctor and Donna are staying, when in in reality even lower income Roman households (i.e. not the super rich) had at least one or two, and that family seems to be at the very least well off, and presumably a likely reason for this is that the Doctor otherwise would have had something to say on the subject and/or the familly could have come across as less sympathetic. Which reminded me again that it's rare for historical fiction set in ancient Rome (or Greece, or any of the slave-owning societies of the ancient world, which is de facto all of them) which doesn't have slavery at its narrative center (i.e. any take on the Spartacus story) to do something with the fact slavery is or should be so ever present in your setting. I mean, a series like Rome has two narratively important supporting slave characters (Posca and Eirene), who both end up freed, but they're not pov characters, and the rest of the slaves depicted fall under the "silent and supportive of their masters" category (like Servilia's female slave in whose arms she dies). Though Rome makes no bones about everyone owning slaves and doesn't try to present the main characters as enlightened about this. (Vorenus like a typical Roman soldier got his share of Gallic captives to sell as slaves and when a good many of them haven't survived the journey is put out of this because he was counting on the money for his family, not because they deserve to live like he does. When Pullo kills Eirene's fellow slave and boyfriend, the other characters take offense that he does so with a slave who isn't his property, and in Vorenus' household, not because they see this as murder.)

Though when slavery is a narrative focus - again, as in any take on the Spartacus story - , there's the avoidance of something else. I mean, it's been years since I've watched the trashy-yet-compelling tv series Spartacus, but as far as I recall, while you had one or two freeborn Romans per season who weren't villainous but came to see the horror and side with the slaves, what the tv show avoided nearly altogether was the existence of freedmen. (And -women.) I say "nearly", beause there's Gannicus, of course, but he's presented as a big exception. Whereas the fact that getting freed by your master or saving enough money to free yourself was a realistic possibility (if you weren't a slave in the mines, that is, because if you worked in the mines, you didn't live long enough) is probably a factor in there not having been more (and more wide spread) slave uprisings; it was enough of a carrot to make the awful stick more endurable for more people, I suppose. Plus, of course, the social mobility was there in a way it wasn't in more modern versions of slavery (i.e. especially but not solely the 19th century US); every senate-rank historian might complain about Claudius' freedmen Pallas and Narcissus, but the fact of the matter is that they were the most powerful men in his administration, then you have Antonia Caenis, freedwoman of Claudius' mother Antonia and live long companion of the later Emperor Vespasian, and a few generataions later, one of the Five Emperors in the year of the Five Emperors (following the much deserved assassination of Commodus), Pertinax, was the son of a freedman. None of this makes slavery a better or less dehumanized state to be in, don't get me wrong, but when you look at just how many slaves there were around in Roman society, how much said society depended on their labor, and wonder why Spartacus' was the last and greatest of slave uprisings instead of slave revolts being a near constant state of affairs, that hope you could end up free with your own property and family and with your children having the chance to achieve high office, eventually the highest, was probably a factor.

P.S. Speaking of Pertinax, getting into the Decline and Fall narrative and the Year of the Five Emperors business again made me realize where Lindsey Davis (in her Falco series) got several of her Roman names from - another of the Five was Didius (Julianus), after all.