Rome Before the Fall
By Creators Obomedia
Categories: Education, History, Society & Culture
The Forum is waking up at dawn, and the men gathering on the steps of the Senate house speak in low voices, as if every word could cost them. Rome Before the Fall is a history podcast about ancient Rome, from the early days of the Roman Republic to the last years of the Roman Empire in the West. How did a small city on the Tiber come to rule the Mediterranean, and what drove the people who fought to control it?You will follow the ambitious and the powerful, and the people who found themselves standing in their way. In every episode you will feel the tension of not knowing what comes next, even when the world around them seemed settled. Each one is a real story told from the first decision to the final cost, with suspense, dry humor and honesty about what the ancient sources say. Every episode is complete on its own, so you can start with any one of them.The show also follows the ordinary people of Rome, the soldiers, the families and the crowds in the streets. Their side of history is often the one the old writers left out, and the show goes looking for it.Most of what we know about ancient Rome comes from a small number of writers, many of them working generations after the events they describe, and this show tells you where the record is solid and where it gets shaky. New episodes arrive every Monday and Thursday at 5 AM. Follow Rome Before the Fall so you never miss the next story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- The Night Nobody Was Supposed to Be There
In sixty two BC, a young patrician named Clodius sneaks into the women-only rites of the Bona Dea at Caesar's house and survives the scandal that follows through jury bribery and political maneuvering. What is at stake is nothing less than the legal machinery of the Republic, which Clodius then…
- The Secessionist Who Saved Gaul
In AD 260, a Roman general named Postumus seizes power on the Rhine and builds a rival empire covering three western provinces while the reigning emperor Gallienus fights to hold Italy. The breakaway state holds its own frontier for nine years, forcing Rome to watch the West govern itself without…
- The Last Man on the Aventine
Gaius Gracchus, tribune of the plebs, builds a sweeping reform program in the one hundreds BC that threatens the Senate's grip on land, courts, and grain. The Senate, outmaneuvered in the Forum, reaches for a new and untested emergency decree to stop him. Rome is about to learn whether a legal…
- The Man Who Asked If Anybody Was Left
In AD 68, Emperor Nero faces a revolt in Gaul that his own Rhine legions crush before he can respond, while the Praetorian Guard negotiates its loyalty to the highest bidder. Galba, the old governor of Hispania, marches toward a throne built on promises nobody authorized him to make. The gap…
- The Consul Who Watched the Sky
In fifty nine BC, Julius Caesar holds the consulship alongside Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, and he intends to use every tool the office offers to push through land reform, ratify Pompey's eastern conquests, and secure a military command. Bibulus responds by retreating to his house and declaring the…
- The Legions Decide
In AD one ninety three, Septimius Severus commands the Pannonian legions and moves fast against two rival emperors, Pescennius Niger in the east and Clodius Albinus in the west, each backed by armies and provincial wealth. The throne of Rome is the prize, and the city's grain supply, its Senate…
- The Emperor Who Went Too Far East
In AD 283, the emperor Carus leads a Roman army deeper into Persian territory than any commander since Trajan, reaching the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon without a battle. What follows is a succession crisis that moves at the speed of a closed litter and ends at swordpoint on a Bithynian…
- The Man Who Came With the Army
In AD 456, patrician Ricimer holds the only army left in the western empire while a series of emperors sit on the throne he controls. As the Vandals strangle Africa and Constantinople watches from a careful distance, the question of whether any western emperor can survive Ricimer's management…
- The Old Man Kept the Whole Thing Running
Augustus has ruled Rome for forty years when his health fails in AD 14, leaving the Principate, a system built entirely around one man, facing its first real test of survival. His cautious heir Tiberius must claim power without appearing to want it, while a sealed will and an unexplained execution…
- Bread, Beasts and a Thousand Years of Nothing Fixed
In AD 248, Philip the Arab stages Rome's thousandth birthday with exotic animals and three days of spectacle, hoping a magnificent public moment can cement a reign that began under suspicious circumstances. The Danubian frontier is already fraying, and the general he sends north to restore order…
- The City That Was Always Going to Win
In AD 324, Constantine becomes sole ruler of the Roman world and fixes his eyes on a small Greek peninsula at the meeting of two seas. Over six years he strips temples, reroutes grain fleets, and conscripts provincial labor to raise a city that will rival Rome itself. Whether one peninsula could…
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