LOST ROMAN HEROES

Join Diocletian as he ups the ante, and continues his bold experimentation to reform the Imperial system to deal with the new world of threats that have overwhelmed Rome for the last one hundred years.  But will this new system, that we know as the Tetrarchy, survive the biggest threat of all, human ambition?

Diocles, son of a slave.  WHAT?? Say that again.  Diocles, who assumed the regnal name of Diocletian, was the first Roman Emperor to be born the son of a former slave.  He would rise from dirt to the pinnacle of Roman power, yet another of the Illyrian cabal, hellbent on restoring Rome to her former glory.  But rather than focusing simply on military brilliance to accomplish that objective, like h...

Probus, Aurelian's prodigy and friend, rose to the purple shortly after Aurelian's murder just like his mentor had, through sheer grit and merit.  In five short years he pursued Aurelian's policies brilliantly, with a deftness of touch perhaps that Aurelian lacked.  He was everywhere at once, East and West, North and South, campaigning north of the Rhine like Germanicus and Drusus, showing the Per...

Emperor Claudius Gothicus is dead.  Aurelian is dashing around Thrace, chasing a Goth horde, while Claudius' weakling brother Quintillus is elevated to the purple.  Rome is still broken in three, with the Gallic Empire going strong in Gaul, Britannia and Germania.  While the East is increasingly independent, and anti-Roman, under Odaenathus' widow Zenobia.  What Aurelian accomplishes next is diffi...

Aurelian.  Farm boy.  Born in the dirt somewhere near Sirmium, son of a soldier, and a priestess of Sol Invictus.  He entered the army at the very bottom and fought his way to the top of the military hierarchy, the old fashioned way - he earned every bit of it.  By the time Claudius Gothicus died, he was the number two to the emperor, the general in charge of the entire army.  But this was a reduc...

In the heart of darkness that was the Crisis of the Third Century, Postumus was one of those super talented generals cherry picked by the supreme talent scout that was the Emperor Gallienus.  A Roman through and through, as Juthungi and Frank warriors poured across the Rhine, Postumus rode a wave of discontent, was declared emperor of a new world that would be known as the Gallic Empire, killed Ga...

Who could have possibly imagined, that when Rome's fortunes hit their nadir, when the West had fallen away (to be ruled by the new Gallic Emperor Postumus) and the East crumbled under Shapur's relentless onslaught, it would not be a Roman Emperor, or a Roman General that saved Rome's eastern provinces from annihilation, but it would be a young guy born in the desert oasis town known as Palmyra tha...

Poor Gallienus, son of poor Emperor Valerian, if you had existed in an earlier era, who knows what might have come of you?  As it was, you had the bad luck of being born in the heart of the disastrous 3rd century, when the machine that was Rome careened down the tracks, no one at the helm, brakes shot, with the wheels coming off.  With the Rhine and Danube frontiers overwhelmed by a relentless bar...

Septimius Severus, Rome's first African emperor.  Born in Leptis Magna, he ended the civil war that erupted following Commodus' death during the Year of the Five Emperors, restoring order to the Empire, cowing the Senate, strengthening the borders, and ushering in a new era of warrior-emperors just in time for the Crisis of the Third Century that would shortly bring Rome to her knees.  Rome wouldn...

Lucius Artorius Castus, centurion of the Roman legions, Primus Pilus under Rome's Philosopher-Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself in the Legio V Macedonica.  This man went wherever the Empire needed him - from the scorching deserts of Syria to the frigid Danube at Belgrade and Carnuntum he served with distinction.  But his true star turn came when he was sent with the Sarmatian knights to serve on the...

Marcus Aurelius, the gentle philosopher who lived through the inconceivable, heart-wrenching loss of ten children.  Heir to Antoninus Pius against his will, he became emperor of 1/3 of the known world just as the Pax Romana began to fracture.  True to his stoic core, Marcus set aside personal wants and rose to the occasion, transforming himself from the first philosopher-emperor into the first war...

Hadrian the Builder!  Third of the Five Good Emperors, and as unknowable as the sphinx.  He took over control of the Roman Empire from Trajan at its greatest territorial extent, inheriting a crazy Frankenstein of a territory that no one since Augustus had really focused on managing well, his predecessors had wanted to milk it or expand it, but Hadrian wanted to optimize it.  A remarkable ambition,...

Trajan.  Why do we feel so conflicted when we think about you?  Well, Trajan was one of the Five Good Emperors, rising to power at a moment when Rome was the bully in the schoolyard and he knew how to wield that power brilliantly, Octavian-like, in a manner that did not threaten the Senate.  Golden boy, Pompey-ish.  Forever more, new emperors would be blessed in his name upon their ascension.  The...

Agricola was a child of Rome's provinces whose father was murdered by Caligula shortly after his birth.  Raised by a remarkable mom, he entered the Roman army and distinguished himself in every way possible, eventually winning the confidence of the Emperor Vespasian who sent him to Britannia to accomplish the impossible - subdue the island.  Agricola reminded us of Agrippa in so many ways, and we...

Equal parts cerebral and brawny, here comes Pliny, the original disaster flick action hero!  Join one of the most fascinating guys you've never heard of outside dusty academic circles. Pliny did it all, fought in Germania, was best buds with multiple emperors, and rode directly into the heart of darkness on August 24th of 29CE to save innocent lives as Vesuvius erupted, killing all in its wake.

Germanicus, son of Drusus, the golden boy!  As remarkable as his father in so many ways, he made his name campaigning across the Rhine just like dad, and managed to recover lost Eagles, to give a proper burial to the Roman dead at Teutoburg, and to teach Arminimus a lesson.  Perhaps he did too much in fact, inspiring jealousy in his adopted father, the Emperor Tiberius, and a suspicion that would...

We enter the world beyond the Republic with the first Roman to have earned the cognomen "Germanicus", through blood sweat and tears.  Grandson of Marc Antony, son of Livia, step-son to Octavian, you might think that he was tempted to live in the lap of luxury but instead, Drusus was cut from an older cloth.  Determined to win military glory, and to live an exemplary life, he did so in spades befor...

Join us for the last of two special episodes recapping the Heroes of the Republic, from Scipio Amelianus, the killer of Carthage, to Octavian, the midwife to Empire.  We give a little summary of each, revisit their scoring, bring a little fun, and then we will officially say goodbye to the Roman Republic, what a journey!  Next stop, the Principate!!  

Join us for the first of two special episodes recapping the Lost Roman Heroes of the Republic, a great way for new listeners to receive an introduction to the podcast, and for longtime listeners to have one last look at Rome's republican glory days before we jump into the Age of Emperors.  In this first special episode, catch up with every Lost Roman Hero between Aeneas and Scipio Africanus.

Octavian transforms himself into Augustus, and transforms the broken hulk of the Republic that was, into the Principate that would preserve Rome for fifteen centuries, and lays the framework for the world that we live in today.  Need we say more?

Tis the season of warlords - there is no Republic anymore, nor is there Empire, there is only a land of warlords, picking over the carcass of what the great had once created.  This is it, this is where the fate of Rome is decided, does it fragment forever into the grubby hands of Antony, Sextus, Brutus and Cassius, or can the two twenty-somethings, Octavian and Agrippa, somehow find a way to threa...

Octavian, ready for prime time!  Marc Antony disparaged him, the Senate disregarded him, and the Conspirators ignored him, all at their peril!  Join us as the 19 year old Octavian arrives in Rome with his BFF Agrippa and in 24 short months completes his meteoric ascent.

Silly, skinny little pleb Octavian, what were you thinking?  Or more importantly, what was Caesar thinking, what did he see, when the two of you shared a carriage from Hispania to Gaul in the autumn of 45BC, that made him change his will to name you the 17-year-old Gaius Octavius his sole heir and adopted son?  Join us in Episode 27 on the first steps of Octavian's journey, from awkward teen to co...

The younger son of a no-name family from a no-name provincial town, this young man would do more than anyone else (even more than Julius Caesar himself) to establish Octavian at the pinnacle of the Roman power structure, doing everything that needed to be done with supreme competency, and humility.   He vanquished Marc Antony, singlehandedly rebuilt Roman infrastructure, left buildings of indelibl...

Join @LostRomanHeroes for a special episode on the men who conspired to murder Julius Caesar, with a special focus on Cassius, Brutus, and Decimus.  Were these men patriots, heroes of the Republic who brought down a tyrant, or, is the story more complex?