109- The New Millenium

Gordian III died in 244 AD and was succeeded by his Praetorian Prefect Philip the Arab. While Philip dealt with internal revolts and external invasion, he found time to celebrate Rome's 1000th birthday in 248 AD.

109- The New Millennium

Comments

[Benjamin]

happy birthday rome

[Xellos_moon]

happy birthday rome!

[Lance Darnell]

I loved the tidbit about the "missing battle."

[Niall McClure]

Hi,

I want to get my dad to join the THoR gang from the but I would really like the episode numbers to be sorted out if at all possible. Call me a bluff old traditonalist if you like but could the series not just start at 001 and go up by 001 for every subsequent episode?

I promise to donate 100GBP if this is resolved in Itunes and anywhere else....see, bribery and corruption is always helpful!

Seriously, thanks for a great show!

[Micah Hall]

The way to sort out the episode numbers is to create an ituenes play list and order them yourself:-) the next problem is getting the play list on to your ipod as it doesn't automatically sync podcast playlists.

To do this, connect your ipod and then select it in itunes. Along the top you will see a variety of menu options, one of which is podcast.

Click on pdcast. Then click on History of Rome. At the bottom, you will see a menu option that says "include episodes from playlists". Tick the box and then sync your ipod. Voila!

hope that helps.

[Micah Hall]

I've only just discovered ThoR, and have listened to every episode in less than a fortnight, which is great. However, I missed the 100th episode so didn't get to ask my question - my fault for being late to the party.

So my question would have been; What does Mike think of the games Rome Total War and Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion? Has he seen them?

I have found they enhance my understanding of the ancient world no end, at least in geographical terms. Nothing tells you where Carthage was quicker than taking the city and killing all the occupants.

It also gives a good understanding of tactics. The phalanx versus legion discussion was very interesting, and you can play the battle of Cynocephelae and see the advantage a Roman legion have over a phalanx. However, if defending a fixed position and able to protect the flanks a phalanx is a formidable weapon.

Most of all, the ancient winning strategy of 'stick and pin' becomes clear - to beat an opponent you deny them momentum, get them bogged down in ground or under fire, then you can flank them. I would really recommend them to anyone with an interest in Roman history.

[Wright]

I just finished a book about Roman Generals and in the final chapters on the later Empire it made the claim that "years of making and breaking emperors" had lead to an irreparable lack of discipline. When did the disciplined and elite Roman Legionaire devolve into the undiscipline peasant levies of the medieval era?

[Wright]

Also, did the Romans deify their really bad emperors like Caligula, Nero, or Commodus?

[Lance Darnell]

@Wright - to answer your second question - No, they were never deified.

[The Parisee Finagler]

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/100921.html
funny series about a duck writing a history of rome

[Nic Payton]

Excellent again, but shouldn't the third scenario be called Philip the lucky, rather than Gordian the lucky?

[Christina]

Hi Mike, I don't know how much you read the comments, but I'm listening to a really interesting podcast where an author talks about the possibility of environmental burnout (soil degradation, deforestation, etc) contributing to the decline of the Roman Empire.

The book is called "Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Fall of Civilizations"

See: http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Food-Feast-Famine-Civilizations/dp/1439101892

What are your thoughts on this?

[Ian]

Just wanted to say thanks for the podcast. I started listening a couple of months ago and have now finally caught up to the latest one. It's very enjoyable.

I wonder if you can cover something about the technological evolution that happens over the course of the period covered to give an idea of how life was changing (or not) for the people and legions. Was life in the early centuries AD very much the same as when Rome began, or have things progressed a lot since then.

[Luise (Tasmania,Australia)]

A Huge Thankyou to Micah Hall, for the tip on sorting the iTunes episodes, I followed the instructions and now have a THoR playlist with all the episodes in order, even that troublesome #28! This has made my day if not my week!

[Robert Graves]

I think we all know that Livia poisoned Timesitheus and arranged for Gordian to die. Duh.

[John]

Hi

Just one observation about this episode. It think that Mike missed an opportunity to get into an interesting subject on the back of this...what was the Arab world in the time of the Romans and what was the relationship between the various Arab kingdoms (such as Nabateans, Ghassanids etc) and Rome? We have heard of cities such as Palmyra, Petra, Gerasa (Jerash), Bostra, Damascus, Aleppo etc.. how did the culture of the imperial power (Rome) mix with the indiginous semetic cultures and what are the lasting effects of the Roman occupation on the Arab world today...perhaps my questions are too big for this podcast, but this is one area of Roman history that is not well covered in general histories, but is actually very interesting. For those that have traveled in the Middle East or Arab World, the foot print of Rome is quite evident throughout the Levant and one even finds a portrait of Philip on Syrian currency!

Also Mike failed to mention the link between Philip and the Severan Dynasty, as his wife Otacilia Severa shows by her name that she came from an Arab family that had been favoured by Septimius Severus.

Another area of interest that was touched on was the early Church in the Arab world. Mike noted the debate over Philips association with the early church and relative tolerance of Christians. However there is another interesting thread hear which is...well, what exactly was early Christianity in the Arab world and Near East and how did it spread amongs the Arab/Syrian/Aramean peoples? It is known that Origen (early church father)had close connections with Christian Arabs including the imperial mother, Julia Mamaea ...so further to the point, what was the connection with Christianity amongst members of the family of Julia Domna, as Syrian who by todays standards...we would consider Arab.

So, for me it would be great if this podcast, as much as I like it, could more often deviate from the history of the Roman Emperors to the history of the Roman Empire and all those over which it ruled...as one of the most interesting aspects of Rome is the sheer diversity of her peoples and the cross fertilization of cultures and ideas that occurred between Rome and the Near East over the course of Rome's dominance over the region.

[Coach Factory Store]

As so often, a journey into the unknown had revealed more about the traveller's home than about the destination.

[cheap jordans]

So, for me it would be great if this podcast, as much as I like it, could more often deviate from the history of the Roman Emperors to the history of the Roman Empire and all those over which it ruled...as one of the most interesting aspects of Rome is the sheer diversity of her peoples and the cross fertilization of cultures and ideas that occurred between Rome and the Near East over the course of Rome's dominance over the region.

[Dress Shoes]

It also gives a good understanding of tactics. The phalanx versus legion discussion was very interesting, and you can play the battle of Cynocephelae and see the advantage a Roman legion have over a phalanx. However, if defending a fixed position and able to protect the flanks a phalanx is a formidable weapon.