Tides of History

For most of its history, the Roman Republic had little to do with the Greek East. That changed at the end of the third century BC. As the war against Hannibal reached its conclusion, momentous things were happening in the eastern Mediterranean, as the system of great powers that had defined the Hellenistic world for a century collapsed almost overnight. Now, Rome would have to make a decision abou...

The Hellenistic world stretched from Sicily to India and encompassed tens of millions of people for centuries, as new kingdoms sprang up, new ways of life emerged, and the distant edges of that world were brought together by trade and migration. Yet the Hellenistic world never escaped its violent roots, and more than any other phenomenon, war defined it for the entirety of its existence. Patrick's...

Why does ancient history matter? Stanford's Professor Walter Scheidel returns to Tides to discuss his new book, What is Ancient History?, and provides an answer: The distant past is nothing more or less than the collective heritage we all, as a species, share. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audio...

More than any other individual, Hannibal defined the Second Punic War. But after his crushing victory at Cannae, Hannibal never again came so close to finishing off Rome. At Zama, in 202 BC, he finally met his match on the battlefield: Scipio Africanus. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (r...

Dr. Bret Devereaux returns to the show to discuss why, exactly, Carthage was such a threat to the Roman Republic. The answer lies in the fact that more than any other state in the ancient world, Carthage most closely resembled Rome. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here:...

Most of Rome's generals were competent but not outstanding, which was more than enough for a power with Rome's structural advantages. Yet the Second Punic War did produce one extraordinary military leader for Rome: Scipio Africanus, a scion of one of the city's most illustrious families. Today, we follow his rise, how it reflected Rome's aristocratic culture of leadership, and the impact it had on...

Cannae was a crushing victory for Hannibal, but it didn't win the war for him. Why? The answer lies in the nature of the Roman political system, which prioritized resilience, manpower, and the diffusion of authority. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/...

The Battle of Cannae was the worst defeat Rome ever suffered, and one of the worst battlefield losses in history. What was it like to be there? We explore the battle from the perspective of a common Roman soldier and try to make sense of the unexplainable. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook...

Ancient DNA has completely reshaped our understanding of prehistory, but what does it offer for periods when we actually have historical texts? Dr. Pontus Skoglund, one of the world's leading aDNA researchers, joins me to talk about his recent study of Iron Age and Medieval Europe, and how genomics can reveal new things even about periods we think we know well. Patrick's book is now available! Get...

Hannibal accomplished a great deal during his long and illustrious life, but no feat has captured the imagination more than his crossing of the Alps. In the teeth of an Alpine fall, Hannibal took tens of thousands of men, horses, and even several dozen elephants into the peaks, then descended on Italy and brought destruction to the heart of Roman territory. Patrick's book is now available! Get The...

The disastrous ending of the First Punic War could have destroyed Carthage for good, and it nearly did. But one man had a plan for how to bring Carthage back to prosperity and power: Hamilcar Barca, the father of Hannibal, who took an army to Iberia to build a new Carthaginian empire. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in...

Dr. Bret Devereaux is one of the world's leading experts on the military history of Rome and on the Punic Wars. We discuss Rome's advantages, what made the Republic so formidable, and why it was able to accomplish so much in such a short period. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by P...

A century of expansion and conquest in Italy transformed Rome from a minor spot on the Tiber to the hegemonic power in the peninsula, but what did that actually mean for the Republic and the city itself? Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge. And...

The First Punic War put Rome on the map as a major power in the Mediterranean. For 23 grueling years, the war between Rome and Carthage dragged on and on, causing immense destruction and tens of thousands of deaths, but in the end the Republic emerged victorious. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or au...

There was no particularly pressing reason for Rome and Carthage to go to war in 264 BC over the small city of Messana, but one small incident nevertheless sparked a conflict that lasted for 23 years and caused untold devastation. Why did this happen? Was war between the two great powers actually inevitable? Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years t...

The medieval world relied on peasants. They grew the food, maintained the buildings, produced the craft goods, and made up the vast bulk of the population. But they were never particularly happy with their place in society, and rebellions, revolts, and quieter forms of resistance were ubiquitous. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook t...

The decades after the death of Alexander the Great saw a massive increase in the scale and intensity of warfare over an area stretching from Italy to Afghanistan. Dr. Charlotte van Regenmortel joins me to talk about the enormous economic impact of that warfare, and how it created a concept of wage labor that transformed the economies of the Hellenistic world and beyond. Patrick's book is now avail...

The German Peasants' War was the largest popular revolt in Europe before the French Revolution, but it's largely been forgotten. Why? Professor Lyndal Roper of the University of Oxford joins me to discuss her absolutely outstanding new book, Summer of Fire and Blood, and we discuss peasants, resistance, and the heady days of the early Reformation. Buy her book! Patrick's book is now available! Get...

Pyrrhus of Epirus won costly but clear victories over the Romans in their first battlefield meetings, but couldn't win the war. Rome's dogged determination eventually won the war for them and placed them on the path to seemingly inevitable conflict with Carthage. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or au...

Early modern Europe was a violent place, full of duels, bloody encounters, and decades-long feuds. In many ways, it was more fractious and dangerous than it had been during the Middle Ages. Professor Stuart Carroll is an expert on the social and cultural aspects of violence in that age, and we chat about murder, conflict resolution, and how people made peace in an unsettled time. Patrick's book is...

By 281 BC, Rome controlled much of Italy, but the city was still a minor player on the larger Mediterranean scene. That changed when King Pyrrhus of Epirus crossed the Adriatic with a powerful army of Macedonian pikemen and war elephants, setting in motion the toughest war the Romans had ever fought. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Sho...

While the Punic Wars mark the stage of Roman history with which most people are familiar, Rome's entrance onto the stage of Mediterranean power politics actually came a decade earlier, with a bloody, grinding war against the Hellenistic king Pyrrhus of Epirus. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audio...

As the fourth century drew to a close, Rome wasn't the only rising power in the central Mediterranean; Syracuse and Carthage were battling for dominance in Sicily and beyond, fighting devastating wars of ever-increasing scale that led directly to the eventual conflicts we know as the Punic Wars. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook th...

Dr. Gino Caspari returns to discuss the extraordinary finds at his most recent excavation of an early (maybe the earliest) Scythian royal burial mound in Siberia! We discuss horse sacrifice, state formation, the earliest Scythians, and the trials of excavating in one of the more remote places on the planet. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years t...

How would history look different if Alexander the Great had died in 334 BC? Would Macedonia still have conquered most of Asia? Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge. And check out Patrick's new podcast The Pursuit of Dadliness! It’s all about “Dad...