How Wild Were The Last Days Of Rome?

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Episode: How Wild Were The Last Days Of Rome?
Host: Kate Lister
Guest: Emma Southern
Release Date: August 15, 2025

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Introduction

In this captivating episode of Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society, host Kate Lister delves into the often-misunderstood final chapters of the Roman Empire. Joined by guest Emma Southern, a renowned historian, they peel back the layers of myth and misconception surrounding Rome’s decline. Contrary to popular belief, the fall of Rome wasn’t primarily due to moral decay or rampant debauchery but rather a complex interplay of political, environmental, and social factors.

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The Myth of Decadence

Kate Lister kicks off the discussion by challenging the widely held notion that the last days of Rome were marked by excessive partying and moral laxity. She states, “If popular history is to be believed, the last days of Rome were a wild, orgy filled, non stop party of unbridled decadence and excess. Sounds like a Leeds Wetherspoons, but what was it really like? How did the Romans react when the invaders were closing in? Were they really ripping the knickers off one another?” (00:28:35).

Emma Southern echoes this skepticism, highlighting that much of this image stems from later interpretations rather than contemporary accounts. She explains, “If the poetry is anything to go by and the art, then it was certainly having plenty of sex and surprisingly public sex. Like, it is impossible to read Marshall without being fairly open to various kinds of sexuality and not like, Jesus Christ” (00:42:46).

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Historical Reality

Delving deeper, Kate and Emma dismantle the myth by presenting historical evidence that points to practical issues rather than moral failings. They discuss how factors such as plagues, climate change, and shifting borders significantly weakened the empire. Emma Southern elaborates, “It was not caused by too much sex. It was caused by plague, climate change and shifting borders, which is decidedly less exciting” (00:44:31).

The conversation emphasizes that while Rome did have instances of sexual excess among the elite, these were not representative of the broader population. Most citizens, especially those in the lower classes, likely experienced little change in their daily lives despite the empire’s decline.

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Internal Structure and Power Issues

One critical factor discussed is the internal weakening of the Roman military and administrative structures. By the 4th century, the empire increasingly relied on auxiliary and mercenary troops, many of whom were former enemies who now served Rome. Emma Southern notes, “They have started by using auxiliary troops and mercenary troops a lot. So a lot of these Goths and Vandals and all the other people have served in the Roman army at some point” (00:13:23).

This reliance diluted the traditional Roman military prowess and loyalty, making the empire more vulnerable to external threats. Additionally, political instability and a series of ineffective emperors compounded these issues, eroding central authority.

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Barbarian Invasions

The guest and host explore the role of barbarian invasions, particularly focusing on the Goths. Emma Southern provides a detailed account: “They start quite early on, but by the 4th century, using it extensively... They want to move into the empire, essentially, and they want to be given a bit of land and set” (00:10:34).

Kate Lister adds a humorous yet insightful perspective on the Goths’ portrayal, saying, “Which is just... you can’t help but envision these people as people wearing black, holding skateboards and hanging around supermarkets” (00:09:07). Their entry into Rome wasn’t the apocalyptic event often depicted but a gradual erosion of power through sustained pressure and strategic alliances.

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Post-Fall Rome

Contrary to the image of Rome collapsing into chaos, both Kate and Emma highlight that Rome continued to exist in various forms even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Emma Southern discusses Theodoric the Great, an Ostrogothic king, who “does a lot in Rome and does a lot of building and he's like quite classicizing. So he likes the idea of rebuilding stuff in the image of Rome” (00:26:33).

Under Gothic rule, Rome experienced a degree of stability and architectural revival. This continuity challenges the narrative of a completely fallen and decaying city, showcasing Rome's resilience and adaptability.

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Victorian Projection

A significant portion of the episode explores how 19th-century Victorians projected their own societal values and fears onto the image of ancient Rome. Emma Southern explains, “The Victorians had an extra special reason to be concerned about this and projecting a lot of stuff onto the Roman Empire because they had an empire all of their very own” (00:38:04).

Kate Lister adds, “And they've got this weird juxtaposition of they're projecting a lot of like, oh, well, they lost their empire because they were too morally loose and sexy. But then also, they really revere them and get very upset when they realized that they quite like looking at a lot of sexy stuff” (00:39:46). This duality reflects the Victorian struggle between admiration for classical civilization and anxiety over perceived moral decline.

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Contemporary Misconceptions

The discussion moves to how these Victorian-era myths have persisted into modern times, fueling misconceptions about the fall of Rome. Emma Southern states, “And it's this idea that blowjobs equal a loss of power” (00:31:44), highlighting the absurdity of equating sexual morality with national strength.

Kate Lister reinforces this point, suggesting that contemporary narratives often unjustly blame moral laxity for the decline of empires: “If you hear somebody saying, oh, you know, all empires before they collapsed were in a state of moral and sexual excess, just hit them with something” (00:40:35).

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Conclusion

Wrapping up the episode, Kate and Emma reiterate the importance of separating myth from historical fact. The fall of Rome was a multifaceted process influenced by external invasions, internal weaknesses, environmental shifts, and economic troubles—not merely by moral decay or excessive indulgence.

Kate Lister concludes, “But one thing we can say with some confidence is that the fall of the Roman Empire was not caused by people having too much sex” (00:44:31). This insightful discussion not only debunks long-standing myths but also encourages listeners to approach historical narratives with a critical and informed perspective.

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Notable Quotes

• Kate Lister: “If popular history is to be believed, the last days of Rome were a wild, orgy filled, non stop party of unbridled decadence and excess...” (00:28:35)
• Emma Southern: “It was not caused by too much sex. It was caused by plague, climate change and shifting borders...” (00:44:31)
• Kate Lister: “If you hear somebody saying, oh, you know, all empires before they collapsed were in a state of moral and sexual excess, just hit them with something...” (00:40:35)

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Additional Resources

• Emma Southern’s Work: Listen to Emma’s other podcasts and explore her research at historyofsexy.com or emmasouthern.com.
• Subscribe: To dive deeper into the intriguing intersections of sex, scandal, and society throughout history, subscribe to Betwixt The Sheets on History Hit.

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This summary captures the essence of the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened while preserving the engaging and educational spirit of the podcast.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

Have you ever listened to an episode of Betwixt the Sheets and found yourself shouting out, wanting to interject or ask a question? Well, I know I have and I'm actually there in real life. But now you can be too, because for the first time ever, you can watch BetWixt Live this September 4th at the London Podcast Festival. More details will be revealed very soon, but go and Mark September 4th off in your diary right now and I promise you there will be everything that you have come to know, love and expect from Betwixt history, laughs, silliness and swearing. And of course we will make sure that there is an incredible guest that you all know and love. For more information, follow the link in the show notes and get your ticket before they're gone. And apparently they are going quite fast as well. So get on with it betwixters. Go go go. I can't wait to see you there.

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[Kate Lister]

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[Emma Southern]

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[Kate Lister]

Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, and you are listening to Betwixt the Sheets and we are gonna get down and dirty with some historical smut. And because of that, I do have to tell you once again that this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adultery things and an adultery way covering a range of subjects. An adult too. We call that the fair dues warning, because if you keep listening, you happen to get upset. Well, that one's on you, pal, because fair dues, we did warn you. Right, on with the show, pass the wine, don't let my goblet run dry. If popular history is to be believed, the last days of Rome were a wild, orgy filled, non stop party of unbridled decadence and excess. Sounds like a Leeds Wetherspoons, but what was it really like? How did the Romans react when the invaders were closing in? Were they really ripping the knickers off one another? Well, I can't wait to find out if you can't. So let's do it.

[Emma Southern]

What do you look for in a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.

[Kate Lister]

I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob.

[Emma Southern]

And pushing the button. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness.

[Kate Lister]

What beautiful d. Goodness has nothing to.

[Emma Southern]

Do with it, Dearing.

[Kate Lister]

Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Shades history of sex scandal in society with me, Cait Lister. With history, it is so easy for myth to become fact. It just takes a few old duffers a couple of centuries ago to write some nonsense and then it gets written up in the history books as exactly what happened. And this seems to be what happened. When we think about the last days of Rome, the connotations that we have of that time of being debauched and immoral has definitely become stuck in the public imagination. But where did that come from? Is there any truth behind it? I mean, I think I know how I'd react if the barbarians were closing in, but maybe the Romans were different. So how did it go down? And how did Rome fall? Joining me today is the always marvelous Emma Southern, and she is going to help us find out. But before we go all Roman decadence and decay, I do have to ask you once more if you wouldn't mind giving us a little cheeky vote for the British Podcast Awards Listeners Choice Award. We've managed to get through to the next round we have guys, and that is thanks to you. That's thanks to you and me lying about what Dan Snow would do to us if we didn't win. But even with that, let's keep voting. Let's keep doing it. We can do it. I'm sure that we can. Right, on with the show. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Emma Southern. How are you doing?

[Emma Southern]

I'm very well, thank you very much. How are you today?

[Kate Lister]

Well, obviously, I'm very excited to be talking to you because I always have a lot of fun when you're on the show. Mostly learning. As if. Like, I don't know if the bar can go much lower for my estimation of the Romans, but every time I talk to you, it seems that something new is brought out of the bag. And it's like, yeah, they got worse. They actually managed to get worse. I don't know how that happened.

[Emma Southern]

That's my raison d' etre these days. It's just every time someone comes away from a conversation with me, ideally they feel a bit worse about the Romans.

[Kate Lister]

See this? I kind of do think about them every day now, but mostly just like, they were awful.

[Emma Southern]

They were horrible. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

My Roman Empire is how horrible the Roman Empire was.

[Emma Southern]

That's. Yeah. Welcome to my world. It's just. Just me pointing at things going, that was awesome. Do you know that is slavery, pederasty.

[Kate Lister]

There must have been one or two nice Romans somewhere that just never got a look in. Just someone who'd set up a little animal sanctuary without, like, having to sacrifice all animals or trying to shag all the animals or trying to enslave all of the animals. Just someone somewhere. There must have been somebody who was just a nice Roman maybe.

[Emma Southern]

I'm sure that there must have been. There must have been somebody who was like, have we ever thought of, like, look at this lovely puppy? But I'll be honest, the first two things I think of when I think of Romans and puppies is one guy who killed a puppy in a temple and Pliny the Elder saying that you can cure epilepsy with a puppy brain.

[Kate Lister]

Stop it.

[Emma Southern]

They wreck everything they do, Even a puppy. They've somehow managed to ruin it. There's nice ones. There's some nice little, like, epitaphs for dogs. People writing little things about how much they like their dogs.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. A little.

[Emma Southern]

There you go. So people who like their dogs at least. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

All right. Okay. So that's like a universal constant. That's good to know, actually. It's so appropriate. Today we're talking about the fall of the Roman Empire, which is just, I guess, where the rest of the world just went, right? No, you've done too much now. Stop it. You are too awful. We have to put a stop to this.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah, you're too rich. You're too awful. What they mostly think, to be fair is you're really rich and it looks like you've got a good thing going on. Can we join in? And then that ends up being a bunch of wars, basically.

[Kate Lister]

Right? So we have this idea of, like, the fall of the Roman Empire and we'll get on to the last days of Rome and where this idea of it being a time of even worse debauchery and madness. Who came up with that idea? But the idea that, like, the Roman Empire fell is a slightly odd one because Rome is still there. So, like, what do we mean when we say there was a fall of a Roman Empire? Like, what, at Tuesday, 4 o', clock? Everyone just decided, that's enough of that, thank you very much. What are we talking about here?

[Emma Southern]

So there is like a moment when people, like, I think if you ask most people these days, like, when is the end of the classical Roman Empire, then? The moment, or I would always say, is when Oadica, who is an Ostrogothic king, has taken over Rome. And he basically takes the Western Roman emperor, who is a child named Romulus Augustulus, basically packs up all of his ceremonial gear and just sends him to Constantinople. Is like, we're not having a Roman emperor in the west anymore.

[Kate Lister]

What? So who was this guy then? The Goth king. Which is just. I know that the joke's been done before, but it's just. You can't help but envisioning these people as people wearing black, holding skateboards and hanging around supermarkets, can you?

[Emma Southern]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Massive jeans all ripped up the back.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so he is basically an Ostrogothic leader. He takes over Rome kind of fairly bloodlessly. It takes a while to do it. And the emperor, by that time in the west is. Is largely powerless and has no military anymore and. And has been for a while. And so when he just moves in, he basically just packs up Romulus Augustlus and is like, I'm in charge of Rome now, and sends him on his way.

[Kate Lister]

So this is a German Goth king and he just, what, he just walks into Rome that by this time is not as strong as it was, and just picks up this little boy and goes, you're off on your holidays?

[Emma Southern]

Simplifyingly monstrously. Yeah, basically.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Emma Southern]

It's pretty bloodless, I would have thought.

[Kate Lister]

They'D have put up a better fight than that.

[Emma Southern]

I mean, this takes centuries to get through. So this is 476 that he packs up. Romulus Augustulus.

[Kate Lister]

4, 7, 6.

[Emma Southern]

And so 410 is when the Goths first sack roam. So the first big sack of Rome, which is considered like, it's a cataclysmic event when it happens. That happens in 410.

[Kate Lister]

Did they see it coming or was it a complete surprise to them?

[Emma Southern]

They do see it coming because they've been fighting the Goths. The Goths have come across the Danube, so they're actually from, like the Caucasus. So these are people from what is now kind of Ukraine and southern Russia. And so they have come across the Danube running away from the Huns, who have come from even further east. And there's centuries worth of fighting the Goths on the Danube, which means that they build themselves into an army and then led by Alaric, they start marching around Western Europe and nobody can stop them. And they take Rome in 410. What they basically want is some land to call their own. They just want to move into the empire, essentially, and they want to be given a bit of land and set.

[Kate Lister]

Up and just that bit that the Romans are living on, that bit of land.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah, basically. Like, there's already people there, but they would quite like to just have some of it.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, fair enough.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. And they constantly fought and eventually they become an enemy. And so they first besiege and then SACK Rome in 410. And everybody kind of knows it's coming. No big D has any power to stop it. The emperor at the time is Honorius, who is rubbish, and it is so drastic that they actually take the emperor's sister hostage. And she's great gallop Placidia, she's fascinating. So that is like the cataclysmic event. And then it takes like another 60 years for the Goths to have fully moved into Rome.

[Kate Lister]

So they come in and then they fuck off again.

[Emma Southern]

They do fuck off again, yes. Because they don't really want Rome at that point. They basically just want to live somewhere. They fuck off to France and then they go down to Spain. They hang around in Barcelona for ages on a holiday.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. Then the Vandals attack it a few years later, and it's a kind of. It's a very long process of eroding away power in the west, so that by the time Oadica moves in, everything has been eroded to a nubbin of nothingness, essentially.

[Kate Lister]

How did that happen? Though, because one thing that I do know about the Romans is they were very good at fighting. Like they were the bestest at it. If they could do as horrible as they were, they could channel the awfulness. And they were very good at going around and beating up other people and taking their stuff. And we've got this idea of them being highly militarized and super organized and they were the first to go, hey, let's use shields, what a great idea. And this kind of stuff. So how do we go from that to just, oh, there's a bunch of German Goths coming in.

[Emma Southern]

Oh, no, about a million different things. So one we have the fact that they have started. They start quite early on, but by the kind of 4th century, using it extensively, they're using auxiliary troops and mercenary troops a lot. So a lot of these Goths and Vandals and all the other people have served in the Roman army at some point.

[Kate Lister]

Oh.

[Emma Southern]

And quite a lot of what their argument is for being given land is that they have served in the Roman army for 20 years. They've served in the Roman army and they're not getting any benefits from that.

[Kate Lister]

So that's one thing that's interesting. So they've learned the tricks of the trade then. So we no longer have this like, oh, surprise, we're the best in the world now. It's. Well, they've been trained that way too.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. And also they would quite like something in return for the service that they gave the Empire.

[Kate Lister]

Aha. Okay, that's interesting.

[Emma Southern]

The other thing is that there are plagues rampaging through the Empire. The plague of Cyprian destroys millions of people.

[Kate Lister]

Was that a Black Death thing or is that something else?

[Emma Southern]

They think it's actually possibly an Ebola like plague. So.

[Kate Lister]

Ooh, a nasty plague.

[Emma Southern]

A very nasty plague. And then the other thing is that the climate is changing. So the period of the Roman Empire corresponds to this kind of ideal period for harvests where the weather is very warm and very rainy. And so they have been having bounteous harvests for 500 years. And now the weather is shifting, is becoming drier and it's becoming colder. And they're having terrible droughts in North Africa and Egypt. And those places were feeding the armies in the west and they are no longer growing anywhere near enough wheat to feed the armies. So you have a series of controllable and uncontrollable events that severely weakened Western power.

[Kate Lister]

It's like Viagra. This, this is how I'm going to compare this to, like when Viagra first launched, it was the only one of its kind. It had patents on it. No one had ever seen anything like it before. It did stuff that nothing else, nothing could touch it. But eventually the patent runs out and everybody else can manufacture the exact same stuff, and they've got their own systems of distribution. And now there's lots of alternatives to Viagra. And they don't have the stranglehold anymore.

[Emma Southern]

Exactly. And that's what happens. And people are hungry, and when people are hungry, there's always unrest.

[Kate Lister]

That's not good. Okay, so there's lots of different things coming together to weaken what was the biggest and strongest empire at the time. Why this Goth king, though? Were they particularly good at fighting? Like, why them? Why not? I was gonna say, why not the British? Because we were just pissed. But, like, why was it them that decided they were gonna do this?

[Emma Southern]

Well, actually, the Romans considered the Britons to be a hotbed of revolution. And it was always very. Considered to be very dangerous to send anyone powerful to Britain because they would get to Britain, get their heads swollen, and then try to invade Gaul with their army and declare themselves an emperor. Happen constantly.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, did it? Oh, I'm quite proud of us for that. Well done. Well done. Ancient Britons.

[Emma Southern]

There was something about coming to Britain that made people think that they could rule the empire. I mean, it takes, of course, a long time. Like, they appear in the middle of the third century crisis. So they appear in the middle of the third century. It takes them about a century and a. To eventually take over the Western Roman Empire. They're basically taught by the Romans to hate the Romans.

[Kate Lister]

Bad move, that.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah, bad move. And they're just very good at what they do. Like, they are a spectacle. One of my favorite stories about them, actually, is after the sack of Rome, they then kind of go marching around Italy for a little bit because they don't really have a goal, particularly.

[Kate Lister]

I love that about them. Just chaotic. Just mad chaos. Goblins wandering around, just looking for a fight and just like, no, no, we'll go to Barcelona now.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. And so they. Alaric was the king at the time. He was their leader, and he dies while they're in southern Italy. And they worry that if they bury him or have a tomb for him that the Romans will desecrate it. So they dam a river and divert it, temporarily bury him under the river and then remove the dam so he's buried underneath a river.

[Kate Lister]

That's clever. Oh, I like that.

[Emma Southern]

Which I think is very impressive.

[Kate Lister]

That is impressive. Oh, I might. I Might put that on my funeral plan.

[Emma Southern]

He demands to have a River Mead for you.

[Kate Lister]

That. Okay, I'm warming to him slightly. But then having said that, I wasn't chased bare ass through the streets of Rome by Alaric, which might change up your perception of him quite severely.

[Emma Southern]

It might. Although I will say that even the people who are really freaked out about the Goths sacking Rome and it really is considered to be like earth shattering. Like you have all, all of these writers write about it because you start getting loads of refugees from Rome and they end up in North Africa and they cross the seas and enter the Levant and they are coming with these kind of stories. But Alaric does quite like Rome and so they don't damage it. They don't damage anything.

[Kate Lister]

Very respectful barbarians.

[Emma Southern]

They are very respectful barbarians and so they, they really do very little. And so they're able to have within 30 years they've effectively rebuilt Rome complet complete. They like fixed up all of the minor burnings that they did. And by the 450s when Gallipocidios has become Empress like Rome is back to glory essentially.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Emma after this short break.

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[Emma Southern]

Restrictions apply what do you think makes the perfect snack?

[Unknown]

Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

[Emma Southern]

Could you be more specific when it's cravenient?

[Kate Lister]

Okay, like a freshly baked cookie made.

[Unknown]

With real butter, available right down the.

[Kate Lister]

Street at am, pm Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM.

[Emma Southern]

I'm seeing a pattern here.

[Unknown]

Well yeah, we're talking about what I.

[Emma Southern]

Crave, which is anything from am, pm.

[Unknown]

What more could you want?

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[Kate Lister]

So they've got this initial sack and everybody loses their mind. It sounds like the Goths wandered in and went, oh, nice. Nice statues, everyone. Oh, no, it's lovely. Like they're almost just tourists. And then they go away again.

[Emma Southern]

They're kind of like, oh, well, we're in now and we didn't really have a plan and we're going to take some stuff, but we're on the move. So it's not like they've got a place to take all the stuff back to, so they can't steal all the statues because what are they going to do? Drag it around with.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, very good point, Very good point.

[Emma Southern]

Like they're basically a nomadic army at this time. They haven't got a place to take.

[Kate Lister]

Loads of gold that would limit what you were going to take.

[Emma Southern]

Really live its mobility. Yeah, it does.

[Kate Lister]

But then we've got this big push. 476.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. So and this is like a lot of. Because you've also got the Vandals who are in North Africa. They sacroam in 455. And so then it becomes like a kind of constant battle of eroding, taking pot shots. Yeah, basically of people coming from all sides. Because you've got the Goths who are kind of all over the show. You've got the Franks who are coming from Germany into kind of France and Belgium and Gaul. You have the Vandals who are coming from North Africa. And so on every side there are people who are sometimes working together, sometimes not, sometimes fighting each other. And the Romans are just kind of fighting fires on all sides and they're constantly fighting each other as well. And so you run through, like dozens of emperors of the west who all have ludicrous names and who no one's ever heard of. And they just become less and less relevant in the fight. Like it becomes that there is. There are Lots and lots of people competing for territory in Europe and North Africa. And the Romans just become one of those guys rather than the guy. The people. The guy. Exactly. And so it just kind of. They become less and less important in the fight until they're not important at all. The only money that they have is none of them. The resources or money or anything they have is coming from Europe. It's also coming from overseas, from literally overseas. So it all has to travel into Rome and people just stop sending it. Like the people in Constantinople. The Western. The Eastern emperors just stop sending resources eventually.

[Kate Lister]

It must have been a very stressful time. I mean, it's always a stressful time to be a Roman, but a particularly stressful time. Bearing in mind, actually that this is nothing worse than the crap that they've inflicted on other nations throughout their time as the top.

[Emma Southern]

If anything, they don't suffer anywhere near as much. And it's surprising how much when you read the sources about what's happening in Rome and Ravenna, which has become like a real power, that they seem to be having quite a chill time if you're not in the army.

[Kate Lister]

So if you like your regular Roman. Cause I suppose one of the reasons that I assume that all the Romans are absolutely horrific is because most of the history that you get left from is from very powerful people. People that were interesting enough to have stuff written about them, wars that happened to. And I don't think you get nice powerful people. I think that to be powerful like that, you have to be an asshole. I think that's sort of baked into it, isn't it? So it's kind of their history. But if you were just like a regular Roman person, you know, you've got a bit of land, maybe you're growing some grapes or something. How much of this would you have been aware of?

[Emma Southern]

You are going to be aware of it in that if you're a rich Roman, you've got faraway lands and some of them are being damaged.

[Kate Lister]

Yep, okay.

[Emma Southern]

But they remain rich. They remain pretty powerful. What happens is, if you're a rich and powerful Roman, as the Senate stops being useful, the Senate becomes something that only people from the city of Rome go to. It used to be something that people would come from all over the Empire to go to, but it becomes kind of a bit more provincial and it becomes kind of a last bastion of paganism as everything else Christianizes around it. But the rest of the Western empires kind of shift into the Church and starts building up the Church as power base. And so you see people from the 5th century who are writing, they all start writing about church stuff basically instead of going to the Senate. But they're still rich, they've still got lots of land. They will complain about barbarians in there. There's These letters from 5th century Gaul from a guy called Sidonius writing about how he. I mean, this is such a, like Daily Mail thing. He's. When I'm walking around in town, I hear all these different languages and no one speaks proper Latin anymore. I hear all these barbarian languages. So you get those complaints and you get people talking about how they can't travel as much as they would like to anymore, but they don't become any less rich. And on a day to day basis, it doesn't change as much as you would think. There's this guy called Olympia Doris who writes about how astonishingly rich Rome still is in his time. And he's writing from the east in the fifth century. And he's like, every great house has a city inside it. He's like, they've all got their own bars, they've all got their own stadia, they're all like, they have so much money which comes in from their land. And then he is like, they have games that go on for 10 days and they spend £4,000 of gold on it. And so there still are people having a good time in Rome while, you know, most of the fighting, apart from at one or two points, is happening far away. And people find ways to enjoy their lives anyway.

[Kate Lister]

Of course they do. So when the Goths finally show up, then do they move into Rome and like, what exactly? It's just all of their outlying lands that they've conquered, they're not allowed to have them anymore. Like you just allowed the Italian bit. Like, what are we talking about here? Did they stay this time? The Goths?

[Emma Southern]

They do stay and they stay for ages and they become like the next king after Ruadka is Theodoric the Great, who does a lot in Rome and does a lot of building and he's like quite classicizing. So he likes the idea of like rebuilding stuff in the image of Rome. And he has all these advisors who were Roman senators, like Cassiodorus.

[Kate Lister]

It's all very civilized. This. It's just like, it's just an exchange of power that's going on. This isn't quite the burn it to the ground and let's murder everybody that I was expecting. This is.

[Emma Southern]

That happens a bit earlier.

[Kate Lister]

This is more administrative than anything else.

[Emma Southern]

It kind of is because basically, Oadica literally sends Romulus Augustus off with a letter that says, we're not going to be in the empire anymore, we'll be a client. We don't mind working with you, but we're not going to be subordinate to you. We're not going to be in your empire. The east are like, okay. And then that's basically what happens. And we have these letters of Cassiodorus which go back and forth where he's writing to the Eastern emperors, saying, like, oh, Theodoric says X, Y, Z. And they are exchanging diplomacy back and forwards. And then there's a. There's one attempt in the 6th century to kind of retake Rome, which retakes Ravenna, but other than that, it's fairly sort of civilised. It's kind of a bit of a whimper at the very end.

[Kate Lister]

It is, isn't it? It's just more like we've just voted in a new board of governors. That's sort of the feel of it. It's not quite what I was expecting at the end of this really bonkers time and this really powerful empire. So it kind of keeps going, doesn't it? Because you've got like, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, that's still there. How long does that hang on for?

[Emma Southern]

Oh, it depends on how annoying you want to be.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, okay, go on. Let's arm everyone with some pedantic information that they can use to correct people around them.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah, if you want to be really annoying, you could say that the end of the Holy Roman Empire, that would be really annoying. More reasonably, you would say it is the Ottoman sack of Constantinophel in the 1450s. So 1453, that's the end of continuous rule from Constantine through to the final Eastern Roman Emperor. And it is a center of power and then the Ottomans destroy it. But then if you want to be difficult, you can say that the Ottoman Empire is a continuation and go all the way through until the end of the Ottoman Empire, which is like, 1920s.

[Kate Lister]

Wow. Wow.

[Emma Southern]

But, yeah, it depends on how much of a dick you want to be. Thing is, it's difficult to say, like, when does an empire end? Like, there are points when the Byzantine Empire is Constantinople and two fields. And so calling it an empire is a bit of a stretch. But there are people calling themselves Roman until the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Like, there are people throughout, you know, the Middle Ages calling themselves Roman emperors, because it's not.

[Kate Lister]

I don't know how Germanic Italy is as like, a result of this. So they must have left Again, at some point, and just kind of left the Italians to get on with it.

[Emma Southern]

Well, they don't really impose anything other than Arianism. Ostrogoths are Aryans, so they are not Trinitarians. They believe in. Just to bring some theology into this as well. They don't believe in the Trinity, so they don't believe in the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit as a single. They believe in separate. But that's like, the only thing that they really introduce as massively different. Otherwise they run it. And they don't have a Senate anymore because they have a king. But they like, you know, they like the Roman stuff. They have quite a lot of laws that are like, we would really like it if you built temples that looked like Roman temples, actually.

[Kate Lister]

So where did the idea come from? Because I've heard the expression, oh, it was like the last days of Rome. It was like the final days of Rome. And you say that when you mean something is just absolutely chaotic and it's got a kind of a tinge of, like, bacchanalian orgies to it. Like, you know, if something's really excessive. I've heard it say many, many times. But if you're saying it's like the last days of Rome, really, you mean there's an administrative exchange of power. That's exactly. That's actually what happened.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

But where did the idea that, like, it was this hedonistic people were ripping the knickers off each other. Where does that idea come from?

[Emma Southern]

So that idea really comes from, like, the 19th century.

[Kate Lister]

I thought it would. I thought this sounds like something they would come up with.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. And these ideas that there is. That there had to be a moral failing for Rome to have fallen.

[Kate Lister]

Now, that's quite important because I've seen that be repeated even today in certain quarters and certain circles and certain philosopher people have this idea that a fall of an empire or a country is predicated by a looseness of moral laxity. I've seen that argued by people.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. And, you know, people very much still say this today. And it is this idea that blowjobs.

[Kate Lister]

Equal a loss of power.

[Emma Southern]

Exactly.

[Kate Lister]

Hashtag science.

[Emma Southern]

I was Googling around to see if I could find, like, when their concept of the last days of Rome was, like, first used. And I found a blog from 2011 where somebody, some random blogger had said that it was the last days of Rome because a woman had said on the television, which I thought was hilarious, but women didn't used to swear. And that's very much like. Like, I Mean, this is something that to an extent the Romans are saying about themselves that if they were better, then the gods would love them more and they wouldn't lose their empire. And then the Christians say this as well. And you see a lot of Christian writers in the 5th century saying the barbarians wouldn't be here if we were better Christians. And then this continues through. And then when in the Enlightenment, when people start thinking about the, you know, why Rome quote unquote fell or why this empire didn't continue forever, what they look at is texts from all eras of Roman history. So they will pick up on Caligula, who is like the third Roman Empire, and Nero the fifth Roman emperor. And then they'll pick some bits from Juvenal, who's like a hundred years after that, but all from like the first and second centuries, so 300 years before Rome falls and be like, look at these guys. Obviously they couldn't have an empire. Like, they were shagging constantly. They are talking about all the women that they have sex with. They are like having mad orgies. You read Marshall, who's writing in the second century, and they are disgusting. Like, he is absolute filth. And he does make his social circle sound like they've never got any clothes on at all.

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Emma Southern]

And then in the like 1830s, you start getting like French and English philosophers who are, who start saying this stuff like, oh, it fell because it was decadent.

[Kate Lister]

It's this strange equation. And really what's going on, in my humble opinion, I haven't researched this as much as I, I think I probably should have done before. I say this is what they're doing is they're linking it to a feminization of something. You kind of see that. And that goes right the way back to even the ancient Greek writers where you get this sort of Odysseus, like, goes on the island and then he gets distracted by the beautiful, by girls. And you get that kind of motif, a cropping. And it happens with Aeneas and Dido. Like, they get stuck. They're on this big manly quest of. They're gonna do questing and manly war stuff. And suddenly some chick turns up on an island and he's all like, oh, but you just come here, like, have some wine and I'll rub your shoulders. And it's this whole big, like, fear that they're going to be infected by this feminine world and lose their masculine potency.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. And this is something that Romans worried about constantly, like Romans themselves. And this is how 19th century writers are able to have so much kind of ammunition for this idea of Dickens as well. The Romans were saying it about themselves. They were saying at the very height of their empire, like in the late Republic and the early Imperial period, and then into the, you know, the period of Trajan and Hadrian, when it's at its biggest and it's the most military successful it's ever been. They're saying, we like baths too much.

[Kate Lister]

And don't be too much and men.

[Emma Southern]

Wear too much perfume and it's, oh, everyone's got a bit Greek and girly and no one is a good masculine man like they used to be anymore. And we've all become terribly soft. And you're like, well, you're doing pretty well for a bunch of soft lads.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, he's still pretty stabby for a bunch of stuff.

[Emma Southern]

Exactly. But they are like, everybody always thinks that their period is the worst it's ever been.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, true.

[Emma Southern]

And they always think, but weirdly enough, that you know the time when it is the worst it's ever been. People are trying to find new ways forward, but at every point in Roman history, they're always saying, this is the worst it's ever been. And it's this way because we've gone soft.

[Kate Lister]

You've gone soft. And then the Victorians picked up on that idea and really ran with it and sort of created this idea that it was this increasing horrendous feminization and moral laxity and just looseness. And everyone's lounging around eating sandwiches. That's what caused the fall of the Roman Empire.

[Emma Southern]

That's what caused it because they went too soft. And then you get the racist arguments as well, Job, because you get Eastern emperors. So people like Septimius Severus, who is Libyan, people like Philip the Arab. And there are these articles from the 20s and 30s that are just horrific, where scholars were writing articles about how there were too many foreign names. Like, they went through the epigraphy and looked at names from the third and fourth centuries were like, there were too many foreign names. And that's why they hashtag science.

[Kate Lister]

They're like, hashtag, oh, dear.

[Emma Southern]

Hashtag 1930s science.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, well, I mean, that was peak eugenics, wasn't it? That was. And then, you know, and look where we ended up with that crap. I'll be back with Emma after this short break.

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[Kate Lister]

The Victorians had an extra special reason to be concerned about this and projecting a lot of stuff onto the Roman Empire because they had an empire all of their very own, which they also got by being assholes.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. And they then immediately began to fear that they might lose it it by not being as strong as their granddads were and imagining their granddads to be the hardiest men who ever hardied and their grandmothers to be the most pure and wonderful women. And then they look around at the women and men in their lives and they're like, that man's trousers are terribly tight.

[Kate Lister]

We're going to lose Constantinople.

[Emma Southern]

This must be the end of days. Yeah. And no empire is ever in a state of.

[Kate Lister]

Of chill.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah, it's never in a state of chill. It has to be constantly reasserting itself. And there is never a point in the Roman Empire, there was never a point in the history of any empire where everybody was like, God, I'm so glad that I'm in this empire. And where there weren't people trying to leave it. But every imperial power always thinks that if only they could just subdue this one guy, or if they could only just be perfect in some way, everything would be fair. If only they could understand that this is best.

[Kate Lister]

I mean, the Victorians had a very odd attitude towards the Romans anyway because when they discovered Pompeii, they were genuinely quite upset to find as many cocks as they did, that really freaked them out. So you've sort of got this weird juxtaposition of they're projecting a lot of like, oh, well, they lost their empire because they were too morally loose and sexy. But then also, at the same time, they really revere them and get very upset when they realized that they quite like looking at a lot of sexy stuff.

[Emma Southern]

The British Victorian, like, relationship with the Roman Empire is so confused.

[Kate Lister]

Very confused.

[Emma Southern]

Like the fact that Victoria builds this statue of Boudicca and then has this statue be proclaimed that Boudicca was so great that she managed to defeat the Romans and then also become the Romans.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Emma Southern]

They simultaneously love and hate them and they want to be them but be better than them. And there is this kind of general belief that the Romans lost their empire because they were decadent and we can keep ours forever and ever if we don't go down that route. If we can just stay morally pure, then we'll be able to hold onto ours forever and we'll defeat the Romans. As it turns out, the Romans kept theirs for much longer because it has absolutely nothing to do with morality.

[Kate Lister]

No, no, we should say that as well. That it really. If you hear somebody saying, oh, you know, all empires before they collapsed were in a state of moral and sexual excess, just hit them with something. Just. You don't even need to talk to them, just find a book and hit them with it.

[Emma Southern]

Just hit them with anything?

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah, anything. Just throw fists. It's just a stupid thing. It's the thin end of a wedge to women wreck everything. That's what that argument is. There's a direct.

[Emma Southern]

Women and foreigners.

[Kate Lister]

Women and foreigners and blowjobs spoil everything, quite frankly.

[Emma Southern]

And that there is some kind of. Of universal standard of pure masculinity which you can apply.

[Kate Lister]

That can be infected.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. Which can be infected and diluted.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Emma Southern]

And it is very European thinking and it's daft because they only ever are thinking about European empires. They're never thinking about South American empires or Asian empires or North African empires.

[Kate Lister]

And as you rightly point out, the Romans have been absolute dirtbags the entire time that they were there. It didn't get worse, did it? Just before they left is like their levels of debauchery were fairly consistent.

[Emma Southern]

The Romans founded their city by one brother killing another brother, and then the murderer brother stealing a hundred women from nearby towns, like tricking all of his neighbours to come to a party and then stealing their daughters.

[Kate Lister]

They've never behaved themselves.

[Emma Southern]

How Rome is founded like that is Their glorious myth. It is not great from the start.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think that it would be fair? Because, you know, I don't want to defend the Victorians, I certainly don't want to give them any ammunition or anyone thinks that their idea. Ideas are good. But was there anything in their understanding of the Romans? I mean, were they a group of people that constantly had orgies? We still like to think of them like that, that, like, even if the Romans could barely walk from one end of the street to the other without being invited to an orgy, I mean.

[Emma Southern]

If the poetry is anything to go by and the art, then they were certainly having plenty of sex and surprisingly public sex. Like, it is impossible to read Marshall without even, you know, being fairly like open to various kinds of sexuality and not be like, Jesus Christ.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, steady, steady on.

[Emma Southern]

Like, steady on, lads. And you're reading this at dinner parties, are you?

[Kate Lister]

You'd phone the police, like if you were just going around to have tea with your mate and they put pornhub on the telly. That's the sort of thing, basically.

[Emma Southern]

That's how it feels. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he's gonna be just giving you a six line poem about how that girl over there is a lesbian is very funny indeed with like graphic descriptions and. Or like there's this list he has of poems that you can write on gift tags for presents at Saturnalia. And like one of them is just a man for sex and another one is a penis made out of flour.

[Kate Lister]

So we've all known a marshal, haven't we, that just, you know, you just ignore him the best that you can and try not to.

[Emma Southern]

Except the Romans were like, God, you're brilliant. We're gonna make you incredibly rich because we love your poem.

[Kate Lister]

So they are consistently rude. But it's interesting, you know, that we've spoken about Roman sex before, many, many times. But it's not that it was a complete free for all. They had their hang ups, they were just different hang ups to the ones we have today.

[Emma Southern]

They are. And they are free about some things and not free about other things. And also the people that we are talking about are always like the richest of the rich.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. The people that can get away with this.

[Emma Southern]

Yeah. They're not the middle classes and not lower classes. They are the, you know, the moneyed leisure classes basically whose job is writing poetry or just being very rich or being the wife of a senator. Like, they are not people who have jobs to go to.

[Kate Lister]

No. But one thing we can say with some confidence is that the fall of the Roman Empire was not caused by people having too much sex.

[Emma Southern]

It was not caused by too much sex. It was caused by plague, climate change and shifting borders, which is decidedly less exciting. It's less thrilling. It's less fun to bring up in the pub, I'll be honest.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, Emma, you have been wonderful once again. Thank you so much. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Emma Southern]

They can find [e-mail] or they can find [e-mail] and listen to my podcast with Janina Matisson.

[Kate Lister]

Amazing. Thank you so much. Will you come back again anytime? Thank you for listening and thank you so much. Much to Emma for joining us once again and if you have got an idea for a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email [e-mail] Coming up, we have got episodes on the real Virgin Mary and an episode on the vanity of Henry viii no less. It's quite a long episode. This podcast was edited by Tom Delaghi and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte at long. Join me again betwixt the sheets History of Sex Scandal in society, A podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

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