The incompleteness of the archaeological record makes strong conclusions about military dispositions and trends imprecise, leading to much discussion on Late Roman frontier organisation. In its simplest terms, the argument revolves around whether Diocletian and Constantine intentionally replaced “reactionary defence inside Roman territory [with] occasional aggressive pre-emptive defence across the frontiers,” (Southern and Dixon (2001), 276; Pan. Lat. VIII[5].3 comments on th

Episode 70 - Kleon's dealing with the Revolt of Mytilene and the decline in standards in the Greek world https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-70-kleons-first-endeavor/ A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancient History, with some academic and 'real world' insights. WARNING While it does not appear throughout, some episodes feature some stronger language than others.

While Alexander the Great was crossing the Hellespont on his way to immortality, in 334BC, his uncle and brother-in-law, Alexander I of Epirus, received an invite to cross to Italy from Taras, a Greek colony in Magna Graecia, to help them against several harassing Italic tribes, including the Lucanians, Brutti and Messapians. It was not unusual for the Italian Greeks to ask for help from Greece; for example, as recently as 338BC, Archidamus III of Sparta had campaigned around

While the river frontiers - Rhine, Danube, Euphrates - became increaingly fixed against expectation, this does not mean that the Romans gave up offensive operations to hide behind their defences. Emperors were still expected to wage foreign campaigns. Caligula had every intention of conquering Britain in 39, deduced from his raising of two new legions and when Claudius finally did in 43, it was a substantial undertaking including 20,000 legionaries plus a similar number of au

Episode 69 - A look at the successor to Pericles as Athens' leading man... Kleon https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-69-an-overflowing-sewer/ A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancient History, with some academic and 'real world' insights. WARNING While it does not appear throughout, some episodes feature some stronger language than others.

On 8 December 2001, a Washington Post article asked a woman stationed in Saudi Arabia if she was comfortable with some of that country’s rules, to which she replied that she was and ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’. But the article writing queried, ‘But how far does that go? To feeding the lions?’ Overlooking arguments about damnatio ad bestias, this notion/idiom of ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ has a long history, possibly stemming from a story of Augustine and hi

Setting aside civil wars and revolts, the majority of Rome’s military manpower was used against extramural opposition. Therefore, how Rome acted along her frontiers and fought foreign wars directly affected her recruiting practices. While most tenets were formulated under the Republic (Modern arguments have been dominated by whether Rome followed an aggressive imperialism or whether her “territorial expansion was largely unsought” (Rich in Rich and Shipley (1993), 39). The id

Episode 68 - War has broken out, with it comes Death... and then a white horse hoves into the view of Athens... https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-68-a-white-horse/ A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancient History, with some academic and 'real world' insights. WARNING While it does not appear throughout, some episodes feature some stronger language than others.

It all started so innocently. I was just showing the latest addition to my coin collection to Twitter followers that had arrived in the post that morning. As inquisitive types, we were both struck by what appeared to be the peculiarities of sixth century legend engravers… Six hours later, I was stuck trying to find the Unicodes for a capital "U" with a tail, a backwards capital "U" with a tail, and what looks like a Graeco-Latin version of what would later become the Cyri

We might think that the vast gatherings of people at sporting events as being a modern phenomenon: the largest crowd recorded at an enclosed stadium is considered to be the 173,850 (although unofficially thought to have been up to or over 200,000) present at the final match of the 1950 FIFA World Cup between Brazil and Uruguay at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. But the Romans were more than capable of building infrastructure to host similarly vast gatherings, possibly

Episode 67 - Pericles takes the draconian step of placing a trade embargo on Megara... https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-67-the-final-straw/ A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancient History, with some academic and 'real world' insights. WARNING While it does not appear throughout, some episodes feature some stronger language than others.

When you think about code-breaking, the chances are your thoughts will automatically shift to Enigma, Bletchley Park, the Imitation Game and Alan Turing as perhaps the most prominent example. However, encoding messages was by no means an invention of the modern world. Some form of cryptography itself seems to date back to at least early second millennium BC Egypt, with hieroglyphics were used to decorate tombs, while other examples appear in Mesopotamia and Greece; however,

I originally heard about this notion – I hesitate to call it an historical theory – on an episode of QI and immediately found it both fascinating and ludicrous. It is a hypothesis/conspiracy theory of a German historian, Heribert Illig that is centred on the supposed wish of 10th century Holy Roman Emperor, Otto III, and Pope Sylvester II, to live and reign during the prophetic year AD1000. In order to do, the hypothesis states that he ordered the re-dating or even the invent

Episode 66 - The real flashpoints between Athenian and Spartan allies focuses on Corinth and her colonies... https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-66-the-match-is-lit/ A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancient History, with some academic and 'real world' insights. WARNING While it does not appear throughout, some episodes feature some stronger language than others.

Edward Gibbon used it to create 'modern' historical writing; various German scholars nurtured it during the nineteenth century for it to then be taken on by the likes of J.B. Bury, but it was not until 1964 that the Late Roman Empire was dragged out of the shadows of its Republican and Principate predecessors. And all it took was a seminal work of such mind-boggling depth of inquiry that even now fifty years later, The Later Roman Empire 284-602 by Arnold Hugh Martin Jones st

For it is fine to die in the front line, a brave man fighting for his fatherland Tyrtaios fr. 10, 1-2 Invoking the name of the Thermopylae usually conjures up notions of the heroic sacrifice of Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, giving their lives so that Greece might be free. Of course, the reality of the situation and that sacrifice is much more involved. Indeed, in pure numerical terms, there were several thousand Greek survivors of the battle, with the majority of the pan

Episode 65 - Athens faces rebellions and a Spartan invasion... the latter faced down with bribery? https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-65-athens-on-the-brink/ A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancient History, with some academic and 'real world' insights. WARNING While it does not appear throughout, some episodes feature some stronger language than others.

The gradual Christianisation of the Empire during the fourth century brought new challenges and moral dilemmas for Christians. Positions of authority exposed them to ‘the inescapable ambiguities involved in managing temporal affairs.’[1] The presence of Christians in the Roman army now had to be accepted by those Christians responsible for running the Empire. However, the councils proved that they could be as ambiguous in their pronouncements as earlier scholars. The third ca

Episode 64: Things start to unravel for the Athenians... with major war looming on the horizon... https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-64-the-winds-of-change-and-violence/ A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancient History, with some academic and 'real world' insights. WARNING While it does not appear throughout, some episodes feature some stronger language than others.