Listening to these from the Severan Dynasty onwards always gets me feeling down because you know the good days are long past. It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.
Dont know if anyone cares but if you guys are bored like me atm then you can watch all the new movies on KaldroStream. Been binge watching with my gf these days :)
Severus was disgruntled with his life as emperor? It's like Oscar Wilde said, "The only thing worse than not getting what you want, is getting what you want."
@@tessierashpoolmg7776 i got a little bit overzealous and my stupid brain started accusing the uploader of not giving credit to the original creator of the podcast, which he does in the description My bad
And remember when he killed his old first wife he had a teenager too, long after exiling her and her whole family.....He had promised out loud to kill them years prior. Caracalla was an evil emperor who Proscribed more than Augustus it looks like
@@pharaohsmagician8329 Augustus and Caracalla also both attempted to erase their rivals from the History books. Caracalla had his brother removed from history books and his name chiseled off monuments. Augustus attempted a similar eraser campaign with Mark Antony but that was a hopeless cause.
Anybody who quotes Dwight K Shrute is fine by me! Love this. 2nd time round and it’s surprising how much I missed first time round. Next, The French Revolution! Encore of course! Damn fine podcast and no mistake. 👍👍
Caracalla is one of the few emperors i can find 0 redeeming value in. Ill never believe nero and caligula were as bad as they say but caracallas changes were all for the worse.
I think Elagabalus is worse. Emperors don't have to be nice, but they do have to be strong. Tiberius is absolutely repellent if you look up what he was doing on Capri, knowing that detail makes him at least as bad as Caligula and WAY worse than Nero.
Carracalla sounds kinda funny in a horribly trollish and petty way. Bankrupting entire towns to throw parties nobody is invited to? Seems almost jokerish.
I think you will love my playlist I created if you enjoy Mike Dunkin. Check out my playlist called “Caesar War commentaries” is probably the best. The Caesar playlist also has 2 incredible audio books narrated by same voice actor. Most the playlist is Caesar’s Gaul war commentaries which are amazing! Sounds like Julius Caesar is telling you his story personally. The first book is Alexander the Great Anabasis by Arrian- 12 hour audiobook of audio bliss I’ve gone to sleep to dozens of times. The second book: Harold Lamb - Hannibal - One man against Rome 11 hour running time. For copyright reasons Actual audiobook starts at 6:52:00 to end of video and then start at 0:01 to pick up where it left off.
I found something interesting today while looking at Google earth. I recall somewhere reading that there was a massive earthquake in Rome during the 800s. I tried to google this a few years ago and couldn't find any mention of one that far back. Maybe it was in Gibbon but there is no index to make finding small facts easy. If you look at the photo of Caracalla's baths - most of the eight massive piers that supported the dome of the caldarium are gone. Only two are left standing and I wondered if they were torn down to use the rubble for infill of walls elsewhere. St Peter's piers are gigantic and are built like traditional roman construction except that they don't use the roman brick methods exactly. But they are brick or stone walls (later covered in marble or scagliola (stucco made to resemble marble), or cut stone for the finished exterior and the cavities between the inner and outer walls are filled with rubble masonry - or something like roman style concrete. Like roman concrete, the walls build a formwork that stays in place. All sorts of Palazzi and Churches are built this way because brick and stone is more expensive than rubble and mortar. Even later Gothic Cathedrals are built this way. The more expensive material is used to contain a rubble filler. But I don't think the bath's piers were torn down. They were knocked down by that massive quake sometime is the 800s.. If you look at the Coliseum just north of the bath complex, the low side that is well documented to have fallen in that quake, the collapse is on the same side, about south west, as the side of the baths that lost the piers. The ground probably lurched that way. One other thing. On Kanopy there is a good lecture series on ancient technology by an engineer who teaches at West point. One lecture discusses the Baths of Caracalla. I did some more research and found mention that there were artists sketches from about the time that Rome was being rebuilt during the Renaissance and after the Popes had returned from Avignon, when the baths were far more intact than now. The artist, Marten Van Heemskerck, drew the piers for the dome of St. Peters while it was still under construction, during the mid 1500s, and drew a few pictures of the ruins of the baths but they were already in an advanced state of ruin and appear to have been completely stripped of their decorations and columns and wall sheathing even by then. So nobody ever had a chance to really see what had been there. The Middle ages just wasn't interested. It surprised me because it means during the Middle ages, when Rome was really a very small city of less than 30,000, that had shrunk to about 3000 while the Papacy was in France, all the good material either went to Church construction and most of the marble, as I understand it, was burned to make lime for mortar. If anyone sees this comment- and knows how to find sketches from the early renaissance, I'd love to find were.
Severus Alexander had one of the saddest deaths of any emperor. Septimius was strong and prudent, but he was a cruel tyrant, and Alexander could have easily eclipsed him as the best of his line if circumstances had been different
It seems that the Roman empire took almost as much as it gave, revenue wise. Reminds me of the fall of all the European colonies after WW1 part two in 1945. If they were a net benefit and the European powers were bankrupt why then wouldn't they continue exploiting their assets? Isn't it the truth that they were never net assets, not without the mass subsidies paid for by the State and their tax slave citizens.
James T Cat Cato But some of these "colonies" had been established for hundreds of yrs. Why would the fact that they were bankrupt in 1945 have anything to do with it.
@@alessandrogini5283 Simpsons references apart, he was a consciencious prince with an elevated notion of his office. But his overly controling mother and his own incapability of standing up to her would spell doom for both. Also he reigned just as the Empire was beginning to go through such momentous challenges.
@@ilnigromante666 the problem was the he needs better military advisors that tell him that he Need to make preventive campaign against weak enemy in Europe to win the respect of the army,as well improve the strenght of the army with ausiliarry with heavy and light cavalry as Sarmatians,alans and goths,so he could had avoided mutiny...this means that the campaign against the sassanids started earlyer,in 232 September, and not in the spring of 233.. this had allowed the central army to not be stopped by illness,heat and dissentery,as well to weakned the enemy army ( the bows of sassanids performance weakned in the Rain and humide season)..all this could had make Alexander severus to reimpose the arsacid dinasty.. Alexander severus army reached hatra,but the army was inable to fight due dissentery and heat... In Summer season and mesopotamia,even the armyes of trajan and septimius severus suffered casualties due to heat and lack of fresh water
The problem with Severus Alexander was that he ascended to the throne too young. If he had managed to reach the purple at the age of 26 which was his death he probably would have lived a lot longer and been the best of his line
I would if I could find one I liked. I plan on doing one on Byzantium after i'm finished with Mike's History of Rome. There are short series' on Alexander and the Hannibal, but I don't know of anyone currently doing a Greek History podcast.
+- Timaeus - Bruh Greeks mythology could be podcasted for days that would be interesting also how is ties into Roman mythology. But i assume you like sticking to factual history which im all for. I'll suggest mabey the Mycenaean Kingdom and the Trojan wars. Does eventually tie into to Rome's founding according to the Romans themselves idk how true though. Trojan Wars! Or Peloponnesian Wars! Or the Greco-Persian Wars! Or an entirw pod cast on the Achaemenid Dynasty the mightiest of ancient empires! Im bias towards the Achaemenid's empire in more ways than I should be TBH (2 B Honest) We all got are favorite civs of history. Whats yours? jk
Elagabalas was the last emperor to posses the Holy Grail....the ophoplos stone, the benben stone, they are all the same artifact. In fact you can see it on coins from Elagabalas' reign. Its being carried on a chariot with its trademark "netting" on it. The holy grail was, in fact, a stone, or perhaps 2 stones (several?) from Heaven....read: meteorite....and it was highly magnetic. Its where the legends of the Sword in the Stone come from. It would grab the sword from the hand and to the ancient people that would seem like magic...or the power of the Gods.
He was born in leptic magna Libya 🇱🇾 and became most strongest emperor who controlled all Roman Empire and he occupied a lot of countries including 🇬🇧 Uk ,he died in York city in 🇬🇧
I recently read that Caracalla actually got his nickname because he gave those distinctive cloaks to his soldiers, which would kinda make sense with the whole “enrich the soldiers” thing (which in no way means he didn’t wear one himself too). Btw I also think it might mean or be a corruption of “snail” in Latin, so I imagine the cloaks curled somehow around the wearer, or at least protected them, similar to the shape of a snail’s shell.
The link is in the description, but the whole history is made up of 180 episodes. That is why I wanted to compile them here to make it easier for people. I plan to put them all together into 37 episodes of which we are on the 21st. Thx for watching :)
@@-timaeus-9781 You are a hero. I know you did it so long ago, in another Era....but it was a very lucky day for me when I found your project. Jove! Bless him!
Of course, Duncan gets the significance of Caracalla's citizenship grant completely wrong. Arguably, the historical influence of Rome on Europe would have been much, much less if this grant hadn't happened. It made most of Europe into "Romans" -- it made Europe a cultural entity. The Roman tradition is such because of this grant. All Duncan can manage is 'the greatest distinction in history was blown apart.' Ironically, Duncan would not even have done a Roman history podcast had it not been for this act of Caracalla.
I think your exaggeration is a bit extreme, people from the provinces had been rising to the senate and even emperor for literally centuries before the grant of universal citizenship.
@@jamiecullum5567 It's not an exaggeration if it is true. The mass grant of citizenship involved a grant citizenship for about 30 million people overnight. There's no record of anything even close to this in history. And this isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of academics as well. The focus on "Senators" and "Emperors" or other notables who constituted only a miniscule portion of the population of the Empire, will not permit you to see the full story and impact of Rome on history.
@@LTrotsky21stCentury im not arguing it isnt an important event, just that its not the foundation of western civilisation. To the romans all it meant was that they had to pay taxes now. Before the grant they were subjects not official citizens. There was no real voting or democracy by that point so their "citizenship" was barely different to being a subject as they had been for centuries
@@jamiecullum5567 "all it meant was that they had to pay taxes now" - what an incredibly narrow and contextless view. Typical for people who think Duncan is an insightful historian. The idea of Roman Citizenship was an incredibly powerful cultural and social force. Entire wars were fought over this mere idea. Free people all over the littoral sought affiliation with Rome and attempted to obtain Roman citizenship. It was a cultural idea even the illiterate, downcast and ignorant were familiar with. A sense of this cultural impact can even be seen in some of the writings of Paul in the Bible. Long after Roman citizenship ceased to have any meaningful content politically, it continued to have deep cultural identity meaning for centuries. My argument is that Western cultural identity may have had completely different meaning if Caracalla's grant had never happened; and may not have taken hold at all. If you want to posit a thesis that it was "just about taxes" and ignore all of the other things, that's your right. Caracalla of course wasn't thinking about any of the things were talking about - he was a brute. But what his motivations were are almost completely irrelevant to this discussion.
@@LTrotsky21stCentury yes i know what your argument is and as i said i think its an exaggeration. Do you really think some random simple tribesmen or peasant working on a small farm cared about being a roman citizen. Maybe the elite did for the benefits and status it might give them. But to say its the basis of western civilisation is an exaggeration
@@kanyekubrick5391 That'd be Hadrian, who was awesome. Egadabugs (whatever) was not only a degenerate, but tried to upend their most sacred beliefs. If he'd had tried that a century earlier he would have been executed on the spot.
I don't remember learning about Elagabalus (r. 218-22) when I was at college in Stony Brook; it's a shame they skipped over his incredibly fascinating story. We probably jumped from Commodus to Diocletian after discussing a general overview of the Crisis of the Third Century when there were "many emperors, but we don't have time to discuss them all" as I recall Professor Lipton saying in the fall of 2005. I wonder if things have changed. Maybe nowadays, universities overemphasize him for their social justice (i.e. cultural Marxist) agenda.
Oh dear, our presenter doesn't understand the word prove in the saying "the exception that proves the rule" means test and not the usual meaning of prove. Apart from that it's a very informative series.
This documentary proves that Caracalla was actually a good man because it clarifies to me that Geta coincided with Septimus's prefect and that Geta probably knew that the prefect and his daughter conspired to kill Caracalla. Caracalla is also very handsome with a modern day, photogenic face. Under Marcus Auralius, Septimus and Caracalla, didn't you notice it was rome's HAPPY HOUR? No barbarian tribe wouldn't dare invade at the time of their rule. So for me and anyone else who has an open third eye, Caracalla is an admired HERO!!
Every mention of how crazy men like Caracalla or Ellagabalus were makes me wonder that they couldn't have been entirely looney. Were they trying to stimulate the economy somehow? Caracalla's desire for sea food far inland may be something like the later church's dictate that there should be meatless Fridays or that pilgrimages should be made by the faithful to saints tomb's? Or why Mohammad, a merchant, should require pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina? Requiring an inland city to provide fresh seafood means someone there has to create a supply chain to the coasts, something the locals may not have been inclined to do without his direct command.. After the emperor left, the supply chain may have survived him? The later church's meatless Fridays were a way to stimulate a demand for fish and a spur to coastal fishing communities. Pilgrimages were a way to get people to pick up and get around more. I even read somewhere that protestant England continued with more meatless days to encourage the coastal fisheries and keep a merchant and fishing fleet alive. With so many military actions and civil wars. that acted like a sponge on local resources, the capital to float long distance trade may have been drying up, or had become very conservative and kept in dead or even buried piles of wealth that few dared to risk. Maybe those with any capital just put it into more land and inflated it, the way people today keep plowing it into the stock market in spite of the fact that the prices are far higher than the fundamentals really justify. That would only have aggravated the social displacement of the less well off. The later Dark Ages is notorious for the collapse of long distance trade. It isn't until after the doomsday year of 1000 had passed that economic life in Europe seems to have started to revive. Cathedral building really began when trade had been well revived and those gothic piles are both a cause and sign of renewed economic vitality. Money is blood flow and after the collapse of the empire, the flow was severely restricted and even dead in many places. Before the complete collapse it could have been slowing down considerably. Maybe Caracalla and Ella, are both a sign or how poorly the economy of the empire was doing? They intuit the need for stimulus spending when there are no real economic theories to justify that instinct. For all the scale and comparative sophistication of the imperial system, the population isn't much more sophisticated than the people they are surrounded by in the far less tamed world of the "barbarians". It will take about 1500 years before you see economic theorists like Adam Smith. Gibbon never has anything good to say about the senate after Augustus, so anything they like or dislike is always suspicious. The rivalry between brothers is nothing new to history. One or the other had to take a back seat. Isn't that why Ann of Austria raised Louis XIV's brother Phillippe as a girl? And male hormones are also why the imperial court was frequently manned by eunuchs. Eunuch's don't tend to think with their equipment. A lot of Chinese emperors would have told you that. We all live in our "own private animal".
@@tehutibrim594 @@tehutibrim594 culture vultures???? you can take off your clothes, stop reading, stop speaking my language, give up law, chemistry, industry, engineering, medicine, iron, steel, concrete, animal husbandry, transport, the wheel, running water, electricity, theosophy, music, painting, sculpture, brickwork, photographs, recorded video and sound, knowing ANYTHING that didn't happen right in front of your eyes, the fact that 75% of you no longer die in early childhood, dong ANY job other than subsistence farming and pretty much anything that isn't stone age or further back before you call anyone a vulture... literally trying to hijack other peoples' history and you call people 'culture vultures'... fuckin' idiot.
@@greg_4201 thx 4 sharing, actually imbecile it's not ur language English is made up of over 350 languages so its everyone's, being mathematics, the spoken word itself, the teaching of how to make fire etc are the building blokks of ALL I feel komfortable saying kulture vulture, I use ( k's) blood 4 obvious reasons & u being disrespectful is also obvious, I'm in South Central, Kali ain't hard to find tough guy
I'm glad Mike at least acknowledges that Elagabalus was a probably a trans woman, because she definitely was a trans woman. I still don't see how she should make the short list of bad emperors. All she did was try to live her best life. Sure, she offended the misogynist and religious sensibilities of the Roman aristocracy. Sure, that was clearly not a great idea. But it's not like she was purging half the senate or committing genocide. She wanted to get a sex change, worshipped the wrong gods, and wore the wrong clothes. What a monster.
dramlamb He was a sexual deviant and a spoiled brat, the Romans had seen that in the past and weren’t willing to risk it especially if this brat was going against traditional Roman values and dismissing traditional Roman paganism with his own beliefs such as replacing Jupiter with his Sun God
Yea she should have used more tact. But Aurelian and Constantine did, in effect, the exact same thing and they are seen as two of the best emperors of all time. They were also a lot smarter about it of course. The point is that misogyny often clouds how we view history. And it's not just the misogyny of the ancient historian, but also our own. Elegabalus was a woman. The only reason that we don't come out and say it is because of our own tranmisogyist biases. The further point is that she probably isn't as terrible as everyone says, considering her gender expressions are often pointed to as her most heinous crimes. It's laughable. Alexander's unwillingness to defend the empire was probably, objectively a lot more dangerous.
@@dramlamb5196 Compared to Caligula, Nero, Commodus and especially Caracalla, I think Elagabal was pretty tame. We don't know if any of the wild acts attributed to Ela are actually true or just overly exaggerated to make her look bad which now seems very likely. I also think the main reason Ela was hated, was the fact that she placed her foreign "barbarian" God, no one had ever heard before, over Iupiter. And generally of course, if an emperor is no longer backed by the corrupt praetorians - the ultimate kingmakers, he is done for.
Elgabalus was NOT transgender. He was a religious prophet who spoke the truth and saw himself above gender, but still implicitly male. Most of what is said of Elgabalus's sexuality was written by Cassius Dio for Alexander as a post hoc justification for the removal of Elgabalus
![MAF Teeski - Whole Thing (feat. VonOff1700) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SHWEj-ndz6g/mqdefault.jpg)
My little brother passed away, and the voice of Duncan helps me through the day. Amen.
I have always found ancient history - especially Roman history - a strong support in troubled times. God bless Duncan, and God bless you, Sir.
I am sorry for your loss. 😔
I’m sorry to hear about your brother. I lost a younger brother seven years ago, and it’s rough. Keep on keeping on, man.
Me too.
This isn’t Caracalla is it?! I’m kidding, I’m sorry for your loss
Listening to these from the Severan Dynasty onwards always gets me feeling down because you know the good days are long past. It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.
Reminds me of our current times, more like Sulla and Marius.
Still coming back to hear this fantastic series. Many thanks , a classic.
Taking journey #4 right now as I practice.
@@michaelsmyth3935 #3 for me. ^^
Great series, I love the level of detail -- two hours for a 25-year span? That's what I'm talking about! Thanks for all of these.
:)
best Roman history I've found
Dont know if anyone cares but if you guys are bored like me atm then you can watch all the new movies on KaldroStream. Been binge watching with my gf these days :)
@Zachariah Alex yup, I've been using InstaFlixxer for years myself =)
Severus was disgruntled with his life as emperor? It's like Oscar Wilde said, "The only thing worse than not getting what you want, is getting what you want."
One of the best things on you tube. Love these series!
It's surprising that Elagabalus lasted even four years. He was illegitimate and unpopular and had no powerful friends.
this is the funniest episode best narrator of dialogue ive heard ... the roman empire begins to turn well on its way down to the septic tank
Jesus, I listened to the whole thing. I couldn't stop.
I love this series. What a daunting task! A very late thank you for the time taken to bring history to life.
Thanks man :)
@@jforozco12 it's written clear as day on every single video in the description. Not hard to see .
@@gingerbill128 You're right, deleting my comment.
@@jforozco12 what'd he say?
@@tessierashpoolmg7776 i got a little bit overzealous and my stupid brain started accusing the uploader of not giving credit to the original creator of the podcast, which he does in the description
My bad
I listen to this after a long day of work . Helps get my mind off of work
Greatest most epic RUclips series ever and this was made 10 yrs ago
every dude with a name that has 'plaut/plot' in his name just decides to be the funniest person ever and fulfill their namesake
Carracalla performed a real red wedding. Damn he was cold blooded!
The Severus send their regards.
What he did was stupid and foolish. It ended up getting him killed. He didn’t know how to wield power.
There are only a few original stories in either the books or show. They drew from the vast history of our world, and then modified it.
And remember when he killed his old first wife he had a teenager too, long after exiling her and her whole family.....He had promised out loud to kill them years prior.
Caracalla was an evil emperor who Proscribed more than Augustus it looks like
@@pharaohsmagician8329 Augustus and Caracalla also both attempted to erase their rivals from the History books. Caracalla had his brother removed from history books and his name chiseled off monuments. Augustus attempted a similar eraser campaign with Mark Antony but that was a hopeless cause.
"Because after all, his life depended on it.".
I was just laughing.
Anybody who quotes Dwight K Shrute is fine by me! Love this. 2nd time round and it’s surprising how much I missed first time round. Next, The French Revolution! Encore of course! Damn fine podcast and no mistake. 👍👍
Caracalla is one of the few emperors i can find 0 redeeming value in. Ill never believe nero and caligula were as bad as they say but caracallas changes were all for the worse.
" Ill never believe..." right, because it's always
I think Elagabalus is worse. Emperors don't have to be nice, but they do have to be strong. Tiberius is absolutely repellent if you look up what he was doing on Capri, knowing that detail makes him at least as bad as Caligula and WAY worse than Nero.
Comodus was bad, but come on Carracalla sounds so much worse
Carracalla sounds kinda funny in a horribly trollish and petty way. Bankrupting entire towns to throw parties nobody is invited to? Seems almost jokerish.
Ditto on the great series...best thing to put me to sleep...i've cycled thru the series at least x6...kinda left me wanting more...
I think you will love my playlist I created if you enjoy Mike Dunkin. Check out my playlist called “Caesar War commentaries” is probably the best. The Caesar playlist also has 2 incredible audio books narrated by same voice actor.
Most the playlist is Caesar’s Gaul war commentaries which are amazing! Sounds like Julius Caesar is telling you his story personally.
The first book is Alexander the Great Anabasis by Arrian- 12 hour audiobook of audio bliss I’ve gone to sleep to dozens of times.
The second book: Harold Lamb - Hannibal - One man against Rome 11 hour running time. For copyright reasons Actual audiobook starts at 6:52:00 to end of video and then start at 0:01 to pick up where it left off.
I found something interesting today while looking at Google earth. I recall somewhere reading that there was a massive earthquake in Rome during the 800s. I tried to google this a few years ago and couldn't find any mention of one that far back. Maybe it was in Gibbon but there is no index to make finding small facts easy.
If you look at the photo of Caracalla's baths - most of the eight massive piers that supported the dome of the caldarium are gone. Only two are left standing and I wondered if they were torn down to use the rubble for infill of walls elsewhere. St Peter's piers are gigantic and are built like traditional roman construction except that they don't use the roman brick methods exactly. But they are brick or stone walls (later covered in marble or scagliola (stucco made to resemble marble), or cut stone for the finished exterior and the cavities between the inner and outer walls are filled with rubble masonry - or something like roman style concrete. Like roman concrete, the walls build a formwork that stays in place. All sorts of Palazzi and Churches are built this way because brick and stone is more expensive than rubble and mortar. Even later Gothic Cathedrals are built this way. The more expensive material is used to contain a rubble filler.
But I don't think the bath's piers were torn down. They were knocked down by that massive quake sometime is the 800s.. If you look at the Coliseum just north of the bath complex, the low side that is well documented to have fallen in that quake, the collapse is on the same side, about south west, as the side of the baths that lost the piers. The ground probably lurched that way.
One other thing. On Kanopy there is a good lecture series on ancient technology by an engineer who teaches at West point. One lecture discusses the Baths of Caracalla. I did some more research and found mention that there were artists sketches from about the time that Rome was being rebuilt during the Renaissance and after the Popes had returned from Avignon, when the baths were far more intact than now. The artist, Marten Van Heemskerck, drew the piers for the dome of St. Peters while it was still under construction, during the mid 1500s, and drew a few pictures of the ruins of the baths but they were already in an advanced state of ruin and appear to have been completely stripped of their decorations and columns and wall sheathing even by then. So nobody ever had a chance to really see what had been there. The Middle ages just wasn't interested.
It surprised me because it means during the Middle ages, when Rome was really a very small city of less than 30,000, that had shrunk to about 3000 while the Papacy was in France, all the good material either went to Church construction and most of the marble, as I understand it, was burned to make lime for mortar.
If anyone sees this comment- and knows how to find sketches from the early renaissance, I'd love to find were.
Can't help but there's a good vid of the baths when built: in computer sim, on YT, & it does the decor well.
Oh man I'm glad I found this in time for lunch!
Boo Carracalla, boooo lol
If I could give this 900 more thumbs up...for Jupiter Optimus Magnus.....I would!!
i laughed out loud at carracalla's wedding
Me too.
Dovahatty does it very well.
@@Nonamearisto Dovahatty is a genius lol, so good
Carracalla lived life like somebody overdoing an evil Fallout playthrough.
this-is-one-of-my-favorite-episodes.Lots-of-tounge-in-cheek-humor.PS-I-loved-the-"I-Claudius"-movie-pitch.I'd-go-see-it.
I wonder if Mike Duncan is still conducting the Roman history tours ?
No, I think he's moved on to other things by now, it was several years ago now.
He’s doing revolution podcast
Thank u for sharing
Love it historey that gows back 3000 years just fantastic. All credit to the man. Great highly detailed film my buddy love it
Severus Alexander had one of the saddest deaths of any emperor. Septimius was strong and prudent, but he was a cruel tyrant, and Alexander could have easily eclipsed him as the best of his line if circumstances had been different
You can't list Elagabalus's crimes unless you quote them in elegiacs - at least, if you want to be a proper Modern Major General.
It seems that the Roman empire took almost as much as it gave, revenue wise. Reminds me of the fall of all the European colonies after WW1 part two in 1945. If they were a net benefit and the European powers were bankrupt why then wouldn't they continue exploiting their assets? Isn't it the truth that they were never net assets, not without the mass subsidies paid for by the State and their tax slave citizens.
If I have not misunderstood your post, it takes money to exploit resources, bankruptcy precludes the ability to make the initial investment.
James T Cat Cato
But some of these "colonies" had been established for hundreds of yrs.
Why would the fact that they were bankrupt in 1945 have anything to do with it.
some colonies generated vast wealth , vast vast wealth. They where a massive net benefit.
40:39 best part
Getachiuc
low key, Dwight would be a formidable emperor
Exzellent.
Why do I see the actor who portrayed the character "Reggie" in the RUclips original "Wayne" as Caracalla?
Rome still sounds great to me. Let's go!!
I am loving this series but I wish there was the closed caption option
Some get closed captioning. No punctuation, horrible misspellings, some hilarious!
Roman history tour 2011
:( take me back
Lmao
What about the Alemanni invasion and annihilation of Theodosius the first and the Western army in 271 AD ?
imp rer, great series.
So Severus Alexander was a kind of roman Seymour Skinner.
Alexander severus Is underrated
@@alessandrogini5283 Simpsons references apart, he was a consciencious prince with an elevated notion of his office. But his overly controling mother and his own incapability of standing up to her would spell doom for both. Also he reigned just as the Empire was beginning to go through such momentous challenges.
@@ilnigromante666 the problem was the he needs better military advisors that tell him that he Need to make preventive campaign against weak enemy in Europe to win the respect of the army,as well improve the strenght of the army with ausiliarry with heavy and light cavalry as Sarmatians,alans and goths,so he could had avoided mutiny...this means that the campaign against the sassanids started earlyer,in 232 September, and not in the spring of 233.. this had allowed the central army to not be stopped by illness,heat and dissentery,as well to weakned the enemy army ( the bows of sassanids performance weakned in the Rain and humide season)..all this could had make Alexander severus to reimpose the arsacid dinasty.. Alexander severus army reached hatra,but the army was inable to fight due dissentery and heat... In Summer season and mesopotamia,even the armyes of trajan and septimius severus suffered casualties due to heat and lack of fresh water
The problem with Severus Alexander was that he ascended to the throne too young. If he had managed to reach the purple at the age of 26 which was his death he probably would have lived a lot longer and been the best of his line
I really wish to see something like this done for the Han Empire, parallel lives of Romans and Chinese so to speak. Yes, I am inspired by Plutarch 😅
That would be awesome
Better to be Strong and Wrong than Weak and Wise.
I don't know about this one
1:23:40 bookmark
1:29 Hard to put a lesh on a dog after you put a crown on his head.
A interesting piece of trivia is that a African Roman emperor built the wall that delineates the city of London.
will u do one on the history of ancient greece??
I would if I could find one I liked. I plan on doing one on Byzantium after i'm finished with Mike's History of Rome. There are short series' on Alexander and the Hannibal, but I don't know of anyone currently doing a Greek History podcast.
+- Timaeus -
Bruh Greeks mythology could be podcasted for days that would be interesting also how is ties into Roman mythology.
But i assume you like sticking to factual history which im all for.
I'll suggest mabey
the Mycenaean Kingdom and the Trojan wars. Does eventually tie into to Rome's founding according to the Romans themselves idk how true though.
Trojan Wars!
Or Peloponnesian Wars!
Or the Greco-Persian Wars!
Or an entirw pod cast on the Achaemenid Dynasty the mightiest of ancient empires!
Im bias towards the Achaemenid's empire in more ways than I should be TBH
(2 B Honest)
We all got are favorite civs of history. Whats yours? jk
Pretorean Prefect Inanimate Carbon Rod soon found itself vying for the throne of the empire
Next week, they'll go with...THAT
If he had been made Emperor, Roddus Inanimatius Carbonicus would have been the best of the bunch in this episode. ✋Hail Caesar!
Elagabalas was the last emperor to posses the Holy Grail....the ophoplos stone, the benben stone, they are all the same artifact. In fact you can see it on coins from Elagabalas' reign. Its being carried on a chariot with its trademark "netting" on it. The holy grail was, in fact, a stone, or perhaps 2 stones (several?) from Heaven....read: meteorite....and it was highly magnetic. Its where the legends of the Sword in the Stone come from. It would grab the sword from the hand and to the ancient people that would seem like magic...or the power of the Gods.
gonna need a source on that one bud
Sounds like bullshit to me
He was born in leptic magna Libya 🇱🇾 and became most strongest emperor who controlled all Roman Empire and he occupied a lot of countries including 🇬🇧 Uk ,he died in York city in 🇬🇧
Is this the emperor that built the wall that still delineates the city of London.
I recently read that Caracalla actually got his nickname because he gave those distinctive cloaks to his soldiers, which would kinda make sense with the whole “enrich the soldiers” thing (which in no way means he didn’t wear one himself too). Btw I also think it might mean or be a corruption of “snail” in Latin, so I imagine the cloaks curled somehow around the wearer, or at least protected them, similar to the shape of a snail’s shell.
where can I find the originals?
The link is in the description, but the whole history is made up of 180 episodes. That is why I wanted to compile them here to make it easier for people. I plan to put them all together into 37 episodes of which we are on the 21st. Thx for watching :)
Thanks for these! Mike's podcast is awesome and you've made listening really easy and pleasant. Keep them coming!
@@-timaeus-9781 You are a hero. I know you did it so long ago, in another Era....but it was a very lucky day for me when I found your project. Jove! Bless him!
2:07:00
Haha
@@hamishmitchell884 I don’t remember why I posted that so now you’re in some inside joke with me that only you know about
@@808_rafa Ah, well. I clicked on it, and it took me right too the end of the video. So I just assumed that you were being cheeky 😆
Of course, Duncan gets the significance of Caracalla's citizenship grant completely wrong. Arguably, the historical influence of Rome on Europe would have been much, much less if this grant hadn't happened. It made most of Europe into "Romans" -- it made Europe a cultural entity. The Roman tradition is such because of this grant. All Duncan can manage is 'the greatest distinction in history was blown apart.' Ironically, Duncan would not even have done a Roman history podcast had it not been for this act of Caracalla.
I think your exaggeration is a bit extreme, people from the provinces had been rising to the senate and even emperor for literally centuries before the grant of universal citizenship.
@@jamiecullum5567 It's not an exaggeration if it is true. The mass grant of citizenship involved a grant citizenship for about 30 million people overnight. There's no record of anything even close to this in history. And this isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of academics as well.
The focus on "Senators" and "Emperors" or other notables who constituted only a miniscule portion of the population of the Empire, will not permit you to see the full story and impact of Rome on history.
@@LTrotsky21stCentury im not arguing it isnt an important event, just that its not the foundation of western civilisation. To the romans all it meant was that they had to pay taxes now. Before the grant they were subjects not official citizens. There was no real voting or democracy by that point so their "citizenship" was barely different to being a subject as they had been for centuries
@@jamiecullum5567 "all it meant was that they had to pay taxes now" - what an incredibly narrow and contextless view. Typical for people who think Duncan is an insightful historian.
The idea of Roman Citizenship was an incredibly powerful cultural and social force. Entire wars were fought over this mere idea. Free people all over the littoral sought affiliation with Rome and attempted to obtain Roman citizenship. It was a cultural idea even the illiterate, downcast and ignorant were familiar with. A sense of this cultural impact can even be seen in some of the writings of Paul in the Bible. Long after Roman citizenship ceased to have any meaningful content politically, it continued to have deep cultural identity meaning for centuries. My argument is that Western cultural identity may have had completely different meaning if Caracalla's grant had never happened; and may not have taken hold at all.
If you want to posit a thesis that it was "just about taxes" and ignore all of the other things, that's your right. Caracalla of course wasn't thinking about any of the things were talking about - he was a brute. But what his motivations were are almost completely irrelevant to this discussion.
@@LTrotsky21stCentury yes i know what your argument is and as i said i think its an exaggeration. Do you really think some random simple tribesmen or peasant working on a small farm cared about being a roman citizen. Maybe the elite did for the benefits and status it might give them. But to say its the basis of western civilisation is an exaggeration
The middle of the Empire’s 503 year lifespan was around 211 C.E...
Coincidence that everything went downhill from there? I think not?
If you are counting from 27bc to 476ad, then the halfway point would be the year 224, but the empire didn't begin with an emperor.
Man idk who’s worse- Comodus or Caracalla
Elagabalus.
@@blindthrall in terms of degeneracy? Yeah, he was the original lgbtq
@@kanyekubrick5391 That'd be Hadrian, who was awesome. Egadabugs (whatever) was not only a degenerate, but tried to upend their most sacred beliefs. If he'd had tried that a century earlier he would have been executed on the spot.
I don't remember learning about Elagabalus (r. 218-22) when I was at college in Stony Brook; it's a shame they skipped over his incredibly fascinating story. We probably jumped from Commodus to Diocletian after discussing a general overview of the Crisis of the Third Century when there were "many emperors, but we don't have time to discuss them all" as I recall Professor Lipton saying in the fall of 2005. I wonder if things have changed. Maybe nowadays, universities overemphasize him for their social justice (i.e. cultural Marxist) agenda.
Check your pipes for lead
@@cringlator Check your skull for brain cells, but don't hold out too much hope.
Caracalla really fucked up the opportunity of possibly uniting Rome and Parthia 🤦🏽♂️ i swear this guy is worse than Commodus.
50000 pretorians?
Oh dear, our presenter doesn't understand the word prove in the saying "the exception that proves the rule" means test and not the usual meaning of prove. Apart from that it's a very informative series.
Shut up.
Excellent great work. What I do not understand are the dislikes.
The people who want fake history films where it's all over in a few hours with movie stars and hot babes.
the severans have quickly become my least favorite imperial family 😭
Septimus Severus is Libya 🇱🇾 from Libya Berber
This documentary proves that Caracalla was actually a good man because it clarifies to me that Geta coincided with Septimus's prefect and that Geta probably knew that the prefect and his daughter conspired to kill Caracalla. Caracalla is also very handsome with a modern day, photogenic face. Under Marcus Auralius, Septimus and Caracalla, didn't you notice it was rome's HAPPY HOUR? No barbarian tribe wouldn't dare invade at the time of their rule. So for me and anyone else who has an open third eye, Caracalla is an admired HERO!!
What is this caracalla or what
He was a better emperor than Elagabagus, Tiberius, and maybe Caligula.
Every mention of how crazy men like Caracalla or Ellagabalus were makes me wonder that they couldn't have been entirely looney. Were they trying to stimulate the economy somehow? Caracalla's desire for sea food far inland may be something like the later church's dictate that there should be meatless Fridays or that pilgrimages should be made by the faithful to saints tomb's? Or why Mohammad, a merchant, should require pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina? Requiring an inland city to provide fresh seafood means someone there has to create a supply chain to the coasts, something the locals may not have been inclined to do without his direct command.. After the emperor left, the supply chain may have survived him? The later church's meatless Fridays were a way to stimulate a demand for fish and a spur to coastal fishing communities. Pilgrimages were a way to get people to pick up and get around more. I even read somewhere that protestant England continued with more meatless days to encourage the coastal fisheries and keep a merchant and fishing fleet alive.
With so many military actions and civil wars. that acted like a sponge on local resources, the capital to float long distance trade may have been drying up, or had become very conservative and kept in dead or even buried piles of wealth that few dared to risk. Maybe those with any capital just put it into more land and inflated it, the way people today keep plowing it into the stock market in spite of the fact that the prices are far higher than the fundamentals really justify. That would only have aggravated the social displacement of the less well off. The later Dark Ages is notorious for the collapse of long distance trade. It isn't until after the doomsday year of 1000 had passed that economic life in Europe seems to have started to revive. Cathedral building really began when trade had been well revived and those gothic piles are both a cause and sign of renewed economic vitality. Money is blood flow and after the collapse of the empire, the flow was severely restricted and even dead in many places. Before the complete collapse it could have been slowing down considerably.
Maybe Caracalla and Ella, are both a sign or how poorly the economy of the empire was doing? They intuit the need for stimulus spending when there are no real economic theories to justify that instinct. For all the scale and comparative sophistication of the imperial system, the population isn't much more sophisticated than the people they are surrounded by in the far less tamed world of the "barbarians". It will take about 1500 years before you see economic theorists like Adam Smith. Gibbon never has anything good to say about the senate after Augustus, so anything they like or dislike is always suspicious.
The rivalry between brothers is nothing new to history. One or the other had to take a back seat. Isn't that why Ann of Austria raised Louis XIV's brother Phillippe as a girl? And male hormones are also why the imperial court was frequently manned by eunuchs. Eunuch's don't tend to think with their equipment. A lot of Chinese emperors would have told you that. We all live in our "own private animal".
I actually like this
Thanks
Nah, Carracalla lived for lulz. Evil, nihilistic lulz.
Games of Thrones should sued for plagiarism
Anteny no th. lol
Boo to Caracalla! Booo!!
Fuck yea.
:)
Egg. Quit. Day. Equite
Eekwite. 😢
Caracalla might actually be the worst leader of all time of all emperors
Hail Ceasars
Caledonian is not a race..
A place? Scotland?
As much a race as 'Scottish'. Not as much as 'Scots'.
This is the Africanus era of emperors of Rome, one of them
Well I guess at least some of us are paying attention haha
@@greg_4201 own history huh komin from kulture vultures that's a real hoot!!! I didnt say it btw whoever wrote the history said it vulture
@@dramlamb5196 yea ma'am
@@tehutibrim594 @@tehutibrim594 culture vultures????
you can take off your clothes, stop reading, stop speaking my language, give up law, chemistry, industry, engineering, medicine, iron, steel, concrete, animal husbandry, transport, the wheel, running water, electricity, theosophy, music, painting, sculpture, brickwork, photographs, recorded video and sound, knowing ANYTHING that didn't happen right in front of your eyes, the fact that 75% of you no longer die in early childhood, dong ANY job other than subsistence farming and pretty much anything that isn't stone age or further back before you call anyone a vulture...
literally trying to hijack other peoples' history and you call people 'culture vultures'... fuckin' idiot.
@@greg_4201 thx 4 sharing, actually imbecile it's not ur language English is made up of over 350 languages so its everyone's, being mathematics, the spoken word itself, the teaching of how to make fire etc are the building blokks of ALL I feel komfortable saying kulture vulture, I use ( k's) blood 4 obvious reasons & u being disrespectful is also obvious, I'm in South Central, Kali ain't hard to find tough guy
Could have mentioned they were African :) but you know...western history!
They were roman african. They were white people.
They were Mediterranean as Septimius had Punic and Roman Italian ancestry.
Commie
Pretty sure he did
Donald Trump is a strange blend of Nero and Caracalla.
Yeah, you sound a little on the not so smart side.
@@Woman_in_the_Wilderness Agree.
@@Woman_in_the_Wilderness I can back my points. But try reading more.
@@Woman_in_the_Wilderness not a literate counterpoint at all.
@@jt7638 ....and after several months....we have yet to her all those "points". FAKE NEWS
I'm glad Mike at least acknowledges that Elagabalus was a probably a trans woman, because she definitely was a trans woman. I still don't see how she should make the short list of bad emperors. All she did was try to live her best life. Sure, she offended the misogynist and religious sensibilities of the Roman aristocracy. Sure, that was clearly not a great idea. But it's not like she was purging half the senate or committing genocide. She wanted to get a sex change, worshipped the wrong gods, and wore the wrong clothes. What a monster.
dramlamb He was a sexual deviant and a spoiled brat, the Romans had seen that in the past and weren’t willing to risk it especially if this brat was going against traditional Roman values and dismissing traditional Roman paganism with his own beliefs such as replacing Jupiter with his Sun God
Yea she should have used more tact. But Aurelian and Constantine did, in effect, the exact same thing and they are seen as two of the best emperors of all time. They were also a lot smarter about it of course. The point is that misogyny often clouds how we view history. And it's not just the misogyny of the ancient historian, but also our own. Elegabalus was a woman. The only reason that we don't come out and say it is because of our own tranmisogyist biases. The further point is that she probably isn't as terrible as everyone says, considering her gender expressions are often pointed to as her most heinous crimes. It's laughable. Alexander's unwillingness to defend the empire was probably, objectively a lot more dangerous.
@@dramlamb5196
Compared to Caligula, Nero, Commodus and especially Caracalla, I think Elagabal was pretty tame. We don't know if any of the wild acts attributed to Ela are actually true or just overly exaggerated to make her look bad which now seems very likely. I also think the main reason Ela was hated, was the fact that she placed her foreign "barbarian" God, no one had ever heard before, over Iupiter. And generally of course, if an emperor is no longer backed by the corrupt praetorians - the ultimate kingmakers, he is done for.
Elgabalus was NOT transgender. He was a religious prophet who spoke the truth and saw himself above gender, but still implicitly male. Most of what is said of Elgabalus's sexuality was written by Cassius Dio for Alexander as a post hoc justification for the removal of Elgabalus
@@denizmetint.462 Sol Invictus/Elgabaal was hardly a foreign or barbarian god