Cover of Real Roman History

Real Roman History

Real Roman History

By: Hugo Prudentius
Listen for free

Season's Savings | 0.99 €/month for 3 months

5.99 €/month thereafter - terms apply. Cancel monthly.
Summary

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

All rights reserved. Art Philosophy Political Science Politics & Government Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Episode 100. Special Centennial Episode: What Rome Laughed At, 254 to 184 BCE

    Episode 100. Special Centennial Episode: What Rome Laughed At, 254 to 184 BCE
    4 Nov 2026
    Works Cited Primary Sources
    • The twenty surviving comedies of Plautus are the foundation of this episode. The plays discussed directly are the Pseudolus, first produced in 191 BCE and the best-attested date in the corpus, the Miles Gloriosus, the Menaechmi, the Amphitruo, the Aulularia, the Mostellaria, and the Casina. The Loeb Classical Library edition by Wolfgang de Melo, published in five volumes between 2011 and 2013, is the current standard for the Latin text with facing English translation and supersedes the older Nixon Loeb. The prologues are a distinct category of evidence and are the direct source for the remarks in Part Two about audience management, crying babies, and competing entertainments, though it should be noted that some prologues are later additions written for revival performances rather than original Plautine text.
    • For the biographical tradition, the surviving testimony is thin and late. Cicero refers to Plautus in the Brutusand elsewhere and is the basis for the conventional death date. Aulus Gellius, in the Attic Nights, preserves the mill story and the imprisonment story, and reports the scholarly disputes of the first century before the common era over which plays were genuine. Varro's classification of the plays is known through Gellius rather than directly. Festus preserves the Sarsina birthplace. The methodological point made in Part One, that these details resemble comic plot situations closely enough to raise suspicion of reconstruction, is standard in current scholarship rather than a novel argument.
    • For the absence of a permanent theatre and the senatorial opposition to one, the relevant testimony includes Livy, Valerius Maximus, and Tertullian, whose account of Pompey's temple arrangement is the source of that story and who was writing far later and with his own reasons for disapproving of theatres.


    Archaeological Evidence
    • No physical remains of the temporary wooden stages survive, which is the expected result of structures designed to be dismantled within weeks. Reconstruction depends on the internal evidence of the plays themselves, on later theatrical wall painting from Rome, Pompeii, and Oplontis, and on the surviving stone theatres of the later Republic and empire read backwards with appropriate caution.
    • The terracotta figurines of the comic slave character discussed in Part Three are attested widely across the Roman world in domestic, sanctuary, and funerary contexts. The interpretation of their significance, particularly whether their popularity indicates anything about attitudes toward the enslaved, is contested, and the episode presents the evidence rather than a conclusion.
    • The principal manuscript witness is the Ambrosian palimpsest in Milan, a fourth- or fifth-century codex of Plautus overwritten in the seventh century, first read by Angelo Mai in the early nineteenth century. The Palatine manuscript family provides the other main line of transmission.


    Secondary Sources
    • Moore, Timothy J. The Theater of Plautus: Playing to the Audience. University of Texas Press, 1998. The standard treatment of the performance conditions and of how the plays manage a crowd; underlies much of Part Two.
    • McCarthy, Kathleen. Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy. Princeton University Press, 2000. Sets out the safety-valve reading and the tension between rebellion and social conservatism that Part Three discusses.
    • Stewart, Roberta. Plautus and Roman Slavery. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Reads the plays against the material realities of slaveholding and against the Hannibalic War context, and is the source for the connection between the plays and the recent experience of that war.
    • Anderson, William S. Barbarian Play: Plautus' Roman Comedy. University of Toronto Press, 1993. Argues for Plautine originality against the older view of him as a translator of Greek originals.
    • Segal, Erich. Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus. Second edition, Oxford University Press, 1987. A readable account of the festival context and of the inversion argument.
    • Beacham, Richard C. The Roman Theatre and Its Audience. Harvard University Press, 1991. The evidence for the performance tradition and the question of masks, which the episode treats as probable rather than certain. Richard F. Hardin's introductory work on Plautus in translation surveys the descent from Plautus through Shakespeare, Molière, and the modern stage.
    Show more Show less
    27 min
  • Episode 99. Nerva, Part Two: The Adoption of Trajan and the Founding of the Adoptive Succession

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


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


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

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


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


    Secondary Sources
    • Grainger, John D. Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of AD 96–99. Routledge, 2003. The standard monograph on the reign and the surrounding succession crisis.
    • Jones, Brian W. The Emperor Domitian. Routledge, 1992. Used extensively in Episodes 95 and 96. His account of the assassination and the immediate aftermath remains relevant for understanding the conditions Nerva inherited.
    • Smallwood, E. Mary. The Jews under Roman Rule. Brill, 1976; reprinted 2001. The standard treatment of Roman policy toward the Jewish communities of the empire, including detailed coverage of the fiscus Judaicus under Domitian and the Nervan reform.
    • Syme, Ronald. Tacitus. Oxford University Press, 1958. Two volumes. The classic study of Tacitus and his historical works. Syme's treatment of the Nervan moment in the Agricola and the Histories provides the analytical framework.
    Show more Show less
    44 min
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet