202 Decades of Western History

Hop on board as we leave Italy and take a tour of the Roman Provinces during the first century. Here's our Itinerary: Gaul Britannia Hispania Mauretania and Africa Cyrenaica Egypt Judea Syria Anatolia and Greece Thrace Moesia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia Noricum and Raetia We at 202 Decade Tours hope you enjoy your journey. Please remember: no flash photography, as it may startle the locals.

Claudius rules and rules well. Everyone is saying it. If only he had as much skill with his wives as he did administering the empire. When the 50's began, Claudius was married to his fourth wife, Agrippina the Younger. She was ambitious and committed to seeing her son become the heir to the empire. When Claudius indicated his natural son, Britannicus, might be his preference for the succession, Ag...

Caligula's reign of cruelty and debauchery rolled on, as the people and the senate lived in fear of the mad emperor. Naturally, plots against Caligula grew. His cruelty finally came back to bite him and he was assassinated by a member of the Praetorian Guard. While the senate debated on what to do next, the Praetorians were busy exterminating Caligula's family. An exception was made, though, for C...

Sejanus is doing what now? Still isolated on his island retreat, Emperor Tiberius finally became aware of the duplicity of Sejanus and began to craft his downfall. Sejanus was taken unaware, accused, convicted, strangled, and thrown down the Gemonian Stairs. Free of Sejanus, Tiberius was now left alone with his paranoia. In 37 AD, on his estate near Naples, Tiberius died, perhaps with the help of...

Tiberius got off to a rough start with the senate and the people of Rome. The senate had grown accustomed to being led by the master statesman, Augustus. Tiberius couldn't fill those shoes and there was a mismatch of expectations between him and the senate. The events involving the death of Germanicus at the end of the last decade only made the people of Rome hate him, too. They believed Tiberius...

Augustus and the Roman People react in shock to the horrors of the Disaster of the Teutoburg Forest. The heir to the empire, Tiberius, races to the Rhine lands to fortify the area and prevent an invasion of Gaul. He engages in small cautious incursions back into Germania, to keep Arminius' coalition from trying anything. Soon though, Tiberius returns to Rome. The old Augustus can feel his days end...

Augustus still rules Rome as Princeps. As an old man, he had had the chance to see his most of his great projects through from start to finish. However, three eluded him: improving the morality (and fertility) of the upper classes, finding an adequate successor, and shoring up the boundaries of the empire. His moral legislation was hated universally and failed to improve even his own daughter's mo...

Pompey and Crassus and Caesar. Antony and Lepidus and Octavian. Two triumvirates were made; the first in secret, the second in the open. Each aimed to bend the Roman state to their will. Each fell apart, and their fall brought civil war. The civil wars which Sulla had ended began again with Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon and his march on Rome. Pompey fled, resisted, and then was defeated and...

Hannibal led his army in the legendary crossing of the Alps and defeated army after army sent to stop him by Rome. But no one was able to recover better from a loss than the Romans and they survived and withstood Hannibal's campaigns for years. After clearing the Carthaginians out of Iberia, Scipio led a Roman army to Africa, to stop the Carthaginians on their home turf. Ultimately failing in his...

When we talk about Western Civilization, if such a thing ever really existed, Ancient Rome is at its core. First as the thing itself, then as a memory, then as mimicry, and finally as a model - the idea of the lost Roman world haunts all the history of the West. This episode begins with the Roman Kingdom founded by the fratricidal hands of Romulus. We watch as the small city of Rome throws off its...

Alexander the Great's Empire hangs together by a thread. His only heir is his unborn son; already his generals have begun to carve up the Empire for themselves. This is the stage for the wars of the Diadochi, to settle who would be the true successor to Alexander's greatness.  Into this world, a relative of Alexander named Pyrrhus was born. While his role in the wars of the Diadochi would...

This episode explores the story of the Greeks from the Greek Dark Ages to the Golden Age of Greece, with particular focus on Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Macedon. Although disunited, the Greeks resisted conquest by an outside giant. Realizing their strength, they turned on each other in cycle after cycle of violence, even as their arts and culture reached new heights of beauty. But the destruction...

This episode dives into the ancient world, focusing on the Near East, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Bronze Age Collapse, and what Homer got right. You'll meet the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Phoenicians, Israelites, Babylonians, and Persians. This is the second prologue episode, intended to set the stage before the decades narrative begins in 1 AD. *...

From the first Homo sapiens to the Sumerians, this episode sprints through 200,000 years of prehistory.  It covers Neanderthals, Denisovans, drowned land masses, Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the first farmers, Indo-europeans, the Green Sahara, the unification of Egypt, and the first writing. These prologue episodes help set the stage for what comes next. The main focus of this series, though, star...