Sex Lives of the Roman Legion

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Episode Summary: "Sex Lives of the Roman Legion"
Release Date: July 15, 2025
Hosts: Kate Lister and Alex Meddings
Guest: Rome-based historian Alex Meddings

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society, host Kate Lister delves into the intimate and often overlooked aspects of the Roman Legion's social dynamics. Joined by Rome-based historian Alex Meddings, the discussion unpacks the complexities of love, sexuality, and societal norms within one of history's most formidable military forces.

The Roman Legion: Structure and Discipline

Kate and Alex begin by examining the Roman Legion's renowned discipline and organizational prowess, which were pivotal to Rome's expansive conquests. Alex emphasizes that "the discipline, equipment, organization, and artillery" set the legions apart from their contemporaries ([08:17]). He details the meticulous training and hierarchical structure that ensured operational efficiency and battlefield supremacy.

Notable Quote:
Alex Meddings ([08:17]): "They had the unique advantage in the ancient world of being able to pummel their enemies at a distance using ballistas before slowly walking towards them... then charge them with a mass of men and steel."

Recruitment and Soldier Profile

The episode delves into the stringent recruitment criteria for legionaries. To serve in the Roman Legion, one had to be a Roman citizen, at least 5 foot 7 inches tall, under the age of 35, and pass rigorous physical examinations. Alex humorously notes the logistical challenges, likening Roman soldiers' stringent standards to modern-day bureaucratic hurdles.

Notable Quote:
Kate Lister ([14:39]): "The only time in history men have been quite happy to be short. They're like, oh, sorry guys, I'm five foot five."

Life in the Legion: Benefits and Challenges

Kate and Alex explore the dual nature of life as a legionary. On one hand, soldiers enjoyed numerous benefits such as steady pay, medical care, pensions, and the possibility of social mobility. Alex highlights that "25 years of service during the empire would get you 10 years of pay upon retirement and sometimes land in a faraway colony" ([20:13]).

However, the life of a soldier was fraught with dangers, including the constant threat of battle and the harsh punishments for misconduct. The concept of "decimation"—a brutal punishment where one in ten soldiers was killed for the failings of the unit—underscored the severe discipline enforced within the ranks ([09:54]).

Notable Quote:
Alex Meddings ([09:54]): "Decimation is when an entire unit... has disgraced itself. The punishment... is that the entire unit is rounded up and 1 in 10 men will be beaten to death by the others in the unit."

Gender Dynamics and the Presence of Women

A significant portion of the episode addresses the role and perception of women within the Roman Legion. Contrary to some scholarly assertions, evidence suggests that women, including concubines and camp followers, were present in military camps. Kate references archaeological finds, such as shoes and a wooden dildo discovered at Vindolanda, indicating female presence and possibly more complex social interactions than previously assumed ([29:53]).

Notable Quote:
Alex Meddings ([27:32]): "It's not like Roman, but all you have to do is look at shoe finds from Vindolanda and you find there are shoes belonging to women, children in abundance."

Despite their presence, women were not part of the official military structure. Their roles were primarily supportive—cooks, housekeepers, and sexual companions. Kate and Alex discuss how elite officers might have had their families live with them, but this was not common for the average soldier.

Notable Quote:
Kate Lister ([35:42]): "We have grave inscriptions, for example, of freed veterans who are marrying these focardii."

Homosexuality and Sexual Regulations

The episode explores the Roman attitudes towards homosexuality, particularly within the military. Romans placed a strong emphasis on masculinity and viewed the passive role in homosexual acts as emasculating. This stigmatization led to strict penalties for those who did not conform to the expected sexual norms.

Alex explains that while active participants did not face harsh punishments, the passive ones could be subjected to severe penalties, including death by cudgel ([44:56]). This enforcement was rooted in the belief that such vulnerabilities on the battlefield could be exploited by enemies.

Notable Quote:
Alex Meddings ([44:56]): "Polybius... tells us that there was a punishment if you were caught being the passive party, and that is basically your cudgel to death."

Influence of Women and Personal Relationships

Despite official prohibitions, the personal influence of women on soldiers, especially among the elite, played a role in the dynamics of the Roman Legion. Kate and Alex speculate on how relationships and the presence of women at the camps could have impacted soldiers' morale and decision-making processes.

Notable Quote:
Alex Meddings ([37:53]): "I think there is a matriarch... women probably did influence some of their husbands' thinking."

Social Mobility and Post-Service Life

Serving in the Roman Legion offered a pathway to social mobility, especially for non-elite citizens. Upon retirement, soldiers—particularly auxiliaries—could receive citizenship, land, and a respectable pension, elevating their social status significantly. This incentivized military service, despite its inherent risks.

Notable Quote:
Alex Meddings ([48:57]): "We think about 50% of those who enlisted probably survived to retire... it's not too bad unless you're one of those unfortunate 50% who don't survive."

Conclusion

The episode wraps up by reflecting on the dual nature of life in the Roman Legion—balancing rigorous discipline and societal benefits with the personal sacrifices and strict moral codes imposed on soldiers. Kate and Alex conclude that, despite its challenges, serving in the Roman Legion was considered a prestigious and relatively advantageous career choice in its historical context.

Notable Quote:
Alex Meddings ([48:11]): "It's much better to be in the Roman legion than in any other army that legion might come up against."

Additional Resources

For listeners interested in exploring more about the Roman Legion and its societal implications, Alex Meddings invites them to visit his websites:

• Alexandermeddings.com: Offers detailed tours around Rome and the Appian Way.
• Appiawithalex.com: Allows booking of private tours directly.

---

End of Summary

For those who enjoyed this episode, be sure to explore more intriguing stories about historical societies on Betwixt The Sheets. Don't forget to vote for the podcast at the British Podcast Awards and follow the series for upcoming episodes on Catherine the Great and Victorian sex work scandals.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

Hello everyone, it's me, your host, Kate Lister. I'm just jumping in before the episode to ask you for a little favor. If you are enjoying betwixt, and I hope that you are, we'd love it if you could vote for us for the Listeners Choice Awards at the British Podcast Awards. If you follow the link in the show notes, it should take you to the place you need to go and it would mean the world to us. We were shortlisted last year and the one before that and the one before that. We were so close and it just made us want it even more. I think we can do it this year. Right, on with the show.

[BetterHelp]

BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.

[Monday.com]

Breaking up is never easy, but saying goodbye to your old clunky work tools, well, that's easy. Just repeat after me. It's not me, it's definitely you, you rigid, unfriendly software. It's time to freshen things up with Monday.com the first work platform you'll love to use. With stunning dashboards, customizable templates and built in AI that actually works. Switching to a new work platform has never felt this good. So move on to Monday.com.

[Alltrails]

Out here we feel things. The sore calves that lead to epic views, the cool waterfall mist during a hot hike, and the breeze that hits just right at the summit. But hey, don't just listen to us. Experience it for yourself. Alltrails makes it easy to discover the best of the outdoors. With more than 450,000 trails around the world, points of interest along the trail, and offline maps for always on navigation. Download the free app today and find your next outdoor adventure.

[Kate Lister]

Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. This is Betwixt the Sheets and thank you for stopping by once more. But because I'm a responsible adult, I have to protect you from. Well, from me, quite frankly, and my guests. So here we go. This is an adult podcast spoken about to other adults about stulty things and adulty wake up in my daughters. But she needs me to. Right, I think that you've got the gist of that. Now, can we crack on with the show? Do you feel protected? Good. Me too. Right, let's do this.

[BetterHelp]

Come here. Come here.

[Kate Lister]

I'm crouched behind a stack of shields somewhere on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. The air smells like blood, sweat and leather. These bloodthirsty rabbles have had a couple of days downtime and let's say discipline has left the encampment. All around me are burly legionnaires swapping stories, smuggling in wine. And although my Latin isn't the best, they're talking a lot about their relations with the local women. Uh huh. That's why I'm hiding, to protect my honor. Shut up. I have honor. But what did the Roman soldiers get up to after dark? What were the rules about sex and love on the march? Who was to supposed to be in their tents and who was absolutely not supposed to be there? You want to find out? I certainly do. Let's do it.

[Alex Meddings]

What do you look for?

[Kate Lister]

A man. Oh, money, of course.

[Alex Meddings]

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning up and pushing button.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

[Alex Meddings]

Goodness.

[Kate Lister]

What beautiful d. Goodness has nothing to do with it, dearie. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the history of Sex Scandal in Society with me, Cait Lister. The history books often portray the Roman Legion as battle hardened badasses and as we're going to find out, they were certainly put through their paces and that was just the recruitment process. What was life like on tour? What were the downsides and what were the perks of this life? Well, joining me today is Rome based historian Alex Meddings and he is going to help us get to know the legionnaires a little bit better. Also, I'm going to get this in early in this episode. We have been nominated again for the Listeners Choice Awards at this year's British Podcast Awards. And if you love what we do, and I love what we do, it would mean the world to us if you would vote for us. Just follow the link in the show notes of this episode and if you don't, I will send the Roman legionnaires your way. Right, thank you everybody. On with the show. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Alex Meddings. How are you doing?

[Alex Meddings]

I am great, thank you. How are you?

[Kate Lister]

I'm fabulous. The last time we spoke you were in Rome and were there strikes on outside?

[Alex Meddings]

Yep, public transport strike. There's none of that today. No, we just have a like 35, 36 degree heat. Traffic is as crazy as usual.

[Kate Lister]

We are here to talk about the Roman legions. Can I ask you just my usual starter question. What brought you to the Romans? Do you remember? What inspired your love of them?

[Alex Meddings]

It was Gladiator. It was definitely Gladiator. It was the original number one. That is not number two.

[Kate Lister]

Have you seen number two?

[Alex Meddings]

I have, I'm afraid.

[Kate Lister]

Are we moving past that one, Faye?

[Alex Meddings]

Maybe bring it up later, accidentally, but I'll try and swerve it. Yeah, but it was Gladiator.

[Kate Lister]

That's. It's a good gateway film, that, isn't it?

[Alex Meddings]

It is. And then I got to study them at university, and then now I have the fortune of living in Rome and doing tours here and kind of living it every day.

[Kate Lister]

You went full in, didn't you? You were just like, I. I love the Romans so much. I'm moving to Italy, I'm learning the.

[Alex Meddings]

Language, I'm doing tours among their ancestors, their descendants.

[Kate Lister]

The more you learn about them, though, the madder they are, this group of people. Do you ever find yourself studying them, talking about them, and you say, they really are mad, these people.

[Alex Meddings]

Every day. Every day I always find out something new, especially like prepping for something like this. Something that just. You can do nothing but sigh.

[Kate Lister]

No, you can't. You said, there's the awful Romans that I know and love. But one thing that they did do, and they did seem to do very well, but which also involved a lot of awfulness, is conquering. That was a big thing for them. They were all about that.

[Alex Meddings]

Absolutely. Firstly, their own peninsula and then further afield and then basically the entire known world. They also like fighting among themselves. I mean, to give them credit, they love. Nothing like a civil war.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, civil war. Making other people fight one another. They like that one quite a lot.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah. I mean, so much so that their foundation myth is brother killing brother. And there were loads of other versions in circulation, but the one they settled on was brother killing brother.

[Kate Lister]

That's the one we want. Yeah, that's the one we're going for. Set them up. But you can't conquer people effectively if you don't have an army. If you don't have an army, it's just one guy shouting. Mouth stuff, isn't it?

[Alex Meddings]

Shouting charge. Nobody follows.

[Kate Lister]

You need the army. And that was. So when we say that they're good at conquering, really, they're good at armying. That's their thing.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, they're really organized and they're really good at discipline.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think that was what set them apart, is the discipline bit?

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, discipline, equipment, Organization and artillery. Artillery really helps. They had the unique advantage in the ancient world of being able to pummel their enemies at a distance using ballistas before slowly walking towards them, not saying a word. It's quite creepy. They wouldn't kind of shout like a barbarian would, but they would walk slowly towards them. And then when they're at the distance where they can look one another in the eye, the Roman and the barbarian, they'll let out a loud scream, shot their javelins at them, and then charge them with a mass of men and steel.

[Kate Lister]

When I think about it, like, one of the things that just blows my mind. I don't know if this is my Roman Empire that I think about every day, but I do think about this is like what a battle actually was, what it is, because we don't really have battles like that anymore. We do war in a different, more detached, deadly, awful way. But the idea that you just go, right, okay, Alex, you're gonna get a group of your mates, and I'm gonna get a group of my mates, and we're gonna meet on a field, and then we're gonna try and kill each other. And whoever's got the most left at the end, you can win. And what that must have been like to have been stood on a battlefield. These guys are gonna come over here and try and kill us. Now that it must have been. They're trying to get into the mindset.

[Alex Meddings]

It would have been. I mean, it would have been terrifying for each of the sides. Each. Every combatant would have felt the fear the same. But the Romans had the discipline, and they also had the. The stick and the carrot in the sense that if they were to run away, they faced a worse punishment than they would ever face at the hands of the enemy. You've got, like, decimation, right?

[Kate Lister]

What's decimation?

[Alex Meddings]

So decimation is when an entire unit. It could be a cohort, it could be a century, but an entire unit has disgraced itself. Maybe it's fled in battle, is the usual one. And the punishment for this is that the entire unit is rounded up and 1 in 10 men will be beaten to death by the others in the unit.

[Kate Lister]

That's what I'm talking about when I say, you keep finding things about these people that just gets. That's unbelievable.

[Alex Meddings]

And they believe they would win most battles, and they sort of did. They won kind of 70% of engagements they ever fought. And so I think they went in with the belief that, honestly, the men behind me are a bigger threat than Those in front of me. And you have, like, a massive steel pushing you forwards.

[Kate Lister]

Anyway, going into battle, like, group mentality and the threat of being battered to death by.

[Alex Meddings]

And the formation, you can't easily run.

[Kate Lister]

No, but. No, no, like, once you're in there, like, that's kind of. There must have been a few soldiers in there going, what on earth am I doing in here? It's too late now. Excuse me, sir. Don't think I need to speak to hr. That's not gonna happen.

[Alex Meddings]

Just like a heavy metal concert, like, at the front of a mosh pit.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, God love him. But it's not like the Romans were more violent than anyone else. It's not like the rest of the world was all peace and love and jelly babies, like, everywhere, this horrendous brutality. But the Romans were just better at fighting battles. Is that true, or was there some luck in this?

[Alex Meddings]

To an extent. I mean, they were better drilled and the drills, as far as we know, we don't know a great deal, but they're pretty simple. It's very much kind of, you know, smash him in the face with the shield and then stick 6 inches of steel in him. But I think it's the organization with the Romans. I think it's the fact that you're able to centralize, especially in the days of the late republic and the empire, you're able to centralize command with an imperator or later with an emperor or with their legates on the field, which is better than generally what you have with barbarians, which tends to just be kind of. Well, let's say they're portrayed by the Romans. A rabble.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Alex Meddings]

Who invite their families along. Like, what the bad move.

[Kate Lister]

That bad move.

[Alex Meddings]

So come and watch.

[Kate Lister]

You get that impression from day. It's like the Romans have turned up wherever they've gone, and they are highly organized and very militarily aware and drilled. And then whoever they've just invaded, there must have been a certain sense of like, oh, shit, fuck. Let's. Where's Fred? Get Fred. Steve. Everyone down here right now. Let's go, go, go. And, like, there's not a lot of organization in that. When you are defending yourself from this invading force of awfulness.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, yeah, it was great. If you can't beat them, join them. So I guess that's why a lot of the people they colonize kind of lie down, and then maybe there'll be a riot or a revolution within a generation or so. But otherwise, you kind of just maybe put a bit of resistance, realize it's futile. Roll over and then don't rise up until the Romans are predictably horrible and start kind of extorting the local population and stealing their chickens. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

All right, so let's try and drill down who the legion were, who the squaddies were, who the boots, sandals, Kalagai, haha. On the ground were. Have they always been part of Rome? What are our earliest records? Were they there from the beginning to the end?

[Alex Meddings]

They were, yep. So the legion is essentially the core of the Roman army throughout the majority of Roman history. So going from Rome's legendary foundation in the 8th century through to the fall of the Western Empire 5th century, or you could even say the fall of the Eastern Empire and the fall of Constantinople in the 1400s. And it's a body formed exclusively of Roman citizens. You have to be a citizen to fight within the legion.

[Kate Lister]

Interesting.

[Alex Meddings]

After the age of Augustus, or rather from the age of Augustus, you also have auxiliaries who are locally recruited and they tend to do non legionary stuff like cavalry. Romans aren't really big on cavalry, so legions tend to be foot soldiers.

[Kate Lister]

Why not? But cavalry is cool. Like horses win stuff. Why wouldn't they like that?

[Alex Meddings]

They do, but apparently it wasn't super effective smashing in. The Romans kind of realized that when cavalry smashed into their legions, their legions often came off better. Their heavy infantry. And so they went well, like we don't really need that. They, they did the sweeping up after the battle, the cavalry, it was really the heavy infantry that did all the damage.

[Kate Lister]

See, they are clever, aren't they? You've got to give them that.

[Alex Meddings]

Vicious and clever, very fast learners.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, so you've got to be a Roman.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah. You also, you had to be 5 foot 7. So there was a height requirement.

[Kate Lister]

All the short kings, all the short.

[Alex Meddings]

Ones were ruled out.

[Kate Lister]

The only time in history men have been quite happy to be short. They're like, oh, sorry guys, I'm five foot five.

[Alex Meddings]

Imagine all the Roman legion is on their tinder profiles. I'm six. I mean, to be in the cavalry, you had to be taller, actually. And then Nero apparently formed a little cohort, or potentially a legion actually formed entirely of men who were 6 foot and above. But the, the rule, the hard and fast rule was you had to be 5 foot 7, you had to be under 35, there was a cutoff limit, you had to pass a physical and you had to provide documentation because the Romans are incredibly bureaucratic. So you had to prove you're a citizen and you're not just a slave who's lying. And vitally you couldn't be a eunuch.

[Kate Lister]

Why have they thrown that one in there, Alex? Why? The eunuchs are being picked on here.

[Alex Meddings]

Exactly. Yeah. That's one of those things you find out every day. And you go, I don't know. Presumably a bunch of eunuchs once turned up at a recruitment center.

[Kate Lister]

Rubbish. And were absolutely useless.

[Alex Meddings]

And the commanding officer was. I don't know what to do here. Let me just write a letter to my superior back to you. I don't think I can have you guys.

[Kate Lister]

So under 35, over 5 foot 7, unless you're working for narrow, in which case it was six foot. Was there a minimum age for joining if they kick you out at 35?

[Alex Meddings]

Teens. So quite your teens. Usually you would join when you're kind of 18, 19, 20. And service, the length of service varied and also, I mean the nature of the legion varied as well. So if we go back to Rome's early history, what you essentially have is you have kind of like farmer soldiers who are fighting seasonally.

[Kate Lister]

Seasonally, yeah. Like going berry picking in the summer and leads to war.

[Alex Meddings]

I imagine they also did a bit of scavenging. Yeah. And you're kind of depriving all the local farmers of all of their food source for the rest of the year.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, seasonal warfare.

[Alex Meddings]

Seasonal warfare. So you'll turn up in the Campus Martius outside the walls of Rome, which is nowadays kind of the historic centre where you've got the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain and hordes of tourists. So they would all kind of muster in the Campus Martius. They would work out how many soldiers were needed for that year's campaigns, according to what the Senate had decided to do and who they decided to go and beat up. On the Italian peninsula, the soldiers would go and fight at the end of the summer, they would come back and they would put down their arms, pick up their ploughs and go back to relatively modest agrarian lifestyle. That was the ideal, really, the kind of humble ideal of the agrarian soldier. And then as the Romans start fighting further afield and they start invading all these far flung lands and fighting campaigns in Africa and in Gaul and kind of east of the Adriatic, soldiers can't return quite so regularly. And so the term of service becomes longer. And they also don't have the guarantee that they're going to be able to just, just go home and everything will be as it was because people have stolen their farms in the meantime and so they become loyal to their individual general. And that's Kind of loosely where the civil wars come from. It's the fact that you have individual, very professional, but private, almost mercenary armies under the control of individual imperators, as they're called. But these are the warlords like Sulla, Marius, Julius Caesar, Pompey, each with private armies.

[Kate Lister]

You know you're rich if you've got a private army, don't you? Like, if you. That's like next level stuff. If you can have your own private army, that's like Ka Ching. So these rich guys just hire their own private armies and they go to war with one another.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, I mean the Senate gives them armies for their various campaigns, but the Romans never really get the hang of the fact that if you're campaigning in Gaul you can't do it in a year.

[Kate Lister]

No, they're very ambitious.

[Alex Meddings]

You have to stay for a bit longer and longer. And then all of the securities of money and pension and stability and all of this has to be promised by the general. And so it's up to him, through plunder and enslavement and the selling of these enslaved peoples, to basically muster the money to then pay the veterans when they eventually retire.

[Kate Lister]

You're not quite selling it to me now. If I was a young 14 year old Italian lad and you know, I've gone to my careers day at my school, why did they join? Because like I half expected you to say that it was made up of enslaved people because that's.

[Alex Meddings]

That would have terrified them. That was very Spartan. I think the Spartans had a few slave fighters on the front lines, the Helots. But no, the Romans are very, very against that. No, it was really attractive because Rome is a very martial society. It's very military culture and so it's respectable as a career.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, so it's got quite a lot of kudos to it.

[Alex Meddings]

Yes, absolutely. There's lots of respect and prestige. You can also advance in terms of your social status quite significantly more than you could in any other profession. And so you can conceivably enter as a relatively poor citizen and you can come out as a very senior camp commander who's on a stonking salary, a pension that will set him and his descendants up kind of for life.

[Kate Lister]

I guess that's kind of like now, isn't it? Because theoretically you could join the army as a grunt and work your way all the way up.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, by just being kind of diligent. You didn't even have to really fight that much. But just by being diligent and kind of following orders and falling into the hierarchy. There were also lots of benefits. So they get medical care.

[Kate Lister]

That's a big one.

[Alex Meddings]

I mean. Yeah, it's better than many U.S. employers nowadays.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Alex Meddings]

Donations from the emperor. You got plunder, lots of plunder. So all the plunder that you can pillage and the pension. So at the end of your term of service, 25 years after, during the empire, you would get 10 years of pay upon retirement. And sometimes you would get land in a faraway colony where you can settle down with all your mates and you can extort the local population, just like in old times.

[Kate Lister]

It's not too shabby. No, Just some atrocities thrown in there.

[Alex Meddings]

Exactly. Also, they have legal privileges, which were fantastic. I mean, I think this would have been a key driver for joining the legions. You kind of can't be prosecuted while you're in the legions, Then a lot of men join to escape litigation.

[Kate Lister]

Right, okay. I'm seeing a loophole there. Like, if you can't be prosecuted for anything while you're in the army, I'm not sure that's the best incentive for the army to behave themselves.

[Alex Meddings]

Well, I mean, technically, it's a military tribunal that will try you for any charge, but they're formed of your mates, and even if a civilian brings a charge against you, they're going to have to do it in a military tribunal. That, and you also can't try a legionary in absentia. They have to be present for the trial. And so, conceivably, if I was a Gallic farmer and some of the legionaries have stolen my chickens, and then they've got on a boat and they're hopping over with Julius Caesar to England, I'm gonna have to follow them in a little boat of my own.

[Kate Lister]

It's not happening. No. Oh, wow. Okay. This is like, my. My brother is in the Navy. He's quite high up in the Navy. And I remember the first time I realized. Hang on a minute. Is he passed his driving test? Trained by the navy to drive, and they paid for his driving test. And the person that assessed him was in the navy, and my brother was a superior to the person who's testing him. It's like, oh, did you pass then? Yeah, first time.

[Alex Meddings]

Is he a decent driver?

[Kate Lister]

He is, actually. Don't tell him that, though. He'll just go to his head.

[Alex Meddings]

Drives like a Roman.

[Kate Lister]

Drives like a Roman. Yeah. He's terrible on the chariots. Absolutely lethal. I'll be back with Alex after this short break.

[Alltrails]

We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature, whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to, or or the succulents that adorn our homes. Nature makes all of our lives, well, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it, but the outdoors is closer than we realize. With alltrails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently with offline maps and on trail navigation. Download the free app today.

[BetterHelp]

BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.

[Monday.com]

Breaking up is never easy, but saying goodbye to your old clunky work tools, well, that's easy. Just repeat after me. It's not me, it's definitely you, you rigid, unfriendly software. It's time to freshen things up with Monday.com the first work platform you'll love to use with stunning dashboards, customizable templates, and built in AI that actually works. Switching to a new work plat platform has never felt this good. So move on to Monday.com.

[Alex Meddings]

I'M gonna put you on nephew.

[Tinsley]

All right.

[Kate Lister]

Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?

[Alex Meddings]

I've been hitting up McDonald's for years.

[Monday.com]

Now it's back. We need snack wraps.

[Kate Lister]

What's a snack wrap?

[Monday.com]

It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, so I'm starting to see the appeal with this then. Although is it kind of like, like now? Like in theory? In theory, anyone could join the army like a council kid from like with zero education and in theory they could get right to the top. But is that a theory that's actually played out anywhere? Because class. I know the Romans are big on class.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, you have to be a citizen. That's really the, the benchmark citizen. No, not even a literate citizen. But if you're literate, probably going to go further because a lot of the Roman army, a lot of time spent in the Roman army is just doing paperwork and bureaucracy if you have skills. So if you're able to wield a pickaxe, if you're able to, I don't know, use a plow, if you're able to do a bit of carpentry here and there, fix a few things, then there's a greater need for.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah. They had to be very practical, what.

[Kate Lister]

Kind of jobs were there in the army? Because my comprehension of it is just you join the army and you go and do army things and go over there and be an army. But there's actually quite a lot to it because as you've already sort of alluded to, they have to be fed and they have to be trained and they have to be clothed and someone has to look after them. And like, what jobs are there in this army that you can go in and do?

[Alex Meddings]

I mean, the way the army is organized is into hierarchy and it's according to. It's your title really. So whether you're an officer, whether you're a grunt, whether you're a Mille's, a legionary or a Decanus, a sergeant. But depending on where you are in the pecking order, you're going to have to do some of the more shitter jobs, like clean out the latrines. If you're right at the bottom, everyone has to do some stuff. So everyone has to do a night watch. Don't fall asleep, otherwise you will be executed. That was a big one. Everyone has to dig the ramparts and the temporary fortifications while they're away on campaign. Everyone has to do a little bit of kit inspection. I mean, you also have slaves who are going around. You also have slaves later on who are employed by the state. Servi Castororum they're called. They are doing lots of jobs as well, but these are all invisible. We have no archaeological record about who is doing what, so we only have to guess. But we have, for example, reliefs of the daughter of a commander of a camp, I think, up in the north of England, or it may be in Germany, I forget. But there's a relief depicting her being bought wine by a slave girl.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, that's interesting. So were there women on these campaigns? Did women go with them?

[Alex Meddings]

Yes, there were followers. We get glimpses in the literature. For example, there was a military disaster in 9 A.D. called the Teutoburg Forest. The disaster of the Teutoburg Forest, where Augustus lost three legions and never really got over it.

[Kate Lister]

That's pretty disastrous.

[Alex Meddings]

Ambushed by a bunch of very angry Germans headed by a Roman turncoat. It was essential.

[Kate Lister]

That'll do it.

[Alex Meddings]

A German hostage who was brought over to Rome, trained in the ways of the legion and then went back and then used all of that against them. But the description of Varus, who was the commander going through the area, it kind of looks like a weird humanitarian mission because you have the army, but then you have loads of Baggage. And you have families and you have women, which is odd because the Romans make a big deal about being mobile and not having lots of women and families in tower. But sometimes they do.

[Kate Lister]

You tend to get that with most armies. As far as I can work out this kind of quite a vague description of camp followers, which I'm not sure does them justice because they're just following people around. But like, the relationship that they had to the soldiers, to the best of your knowledge, would have been what? It was very easy to say that they were all hookers, but I'm not entitled. Some of them almost certainly were. But it is a little bit more complicated than that, that we must come.

[Alex Meddings]

Back to the hookers. Yeah. There are some fantastic anecdotes about that. I mean, the Roman legionaries are very wealthy because they're getting the pay on a daily basis of kind of an urban laborer back in Rome. But they're getting this every day for the duration of their employment. And that's just the base wage. And if you're a centurion, you're earning a fortune. And so where there's money, you're going to attract merchants and you're going to attract commerce and people who have got stuff to sell, whether it be goods, trade wares, or in the worst case, themselves. And then you have these little satellite settlements called Kanabai or Vicki, which spring up around these permanent fortifications. And from kind of the 2nd century AD onwards, a lot of fortifications are kind of permanent because there's not a lot of activity going on on the front line.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. Okay. So they sort of set up and stay there.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, Things like Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall, for example, and the idea that there's.

[Kate Lister]

No women there or that no one would have had a sneaky girlfriend, a sneaky link. That's just. That's just unrealistic, isn't it?

[Alex Meddings]

Well, a lot of stuffy scholars are still really adamant that there cannot have been women in the camp. But all you have to do is.

[Kate Lister]

Betty, that there was.

[Alex Meddings]

Oh, there totally was. I mean, all you have to do is look at shoe finds from Vindolanda and you find there are shoes belonging to women, children in abundance.

[Kate Lister]

Not to mention the dildo that they found. Was it last year or the year before it got reclassified? It had been. It'd been recorded in like, the 90s as, quote unquote, a darning tool. And then two scholars, Rob Sands and Rob Collins, went back and looked at it and they did all this forensic analysis. And then Came back and went, no, it's a dildo.

[Alex Meddings]

A wooden dildo. I listened to that podcast of yours. It was fantastic. Really worth watching.

[Kate Lister]

A wooden dildo. It might have been men using it. We don't know that.

[Alex Meddings]

But I mean, coming onto dildos.

[Kate Lister]

There'S.

[Alex Meddings]

This wonderful anecdote from the Second Punic War. So we're in the 200s B.C. 3rd century B.C. and the Romans are besieging a town called Numantia, which is over in Spain. And they're having a really hard time of it, to the extent the Romans have just signed a temporary truce. And so the Senate sends a guy called Scipio Aemilianus, later known as Scipio Africanus, a fantastic, fantastic name, over to take back control of this weak legion. And he finds that there are 2,000 prostitutes in the camp that he immediately expels. And he also chucks out all tools of pleasure.

[Kate Lister]

Pardon?

[Alex Meddings]

And I checked the Latin, and it literally means, like, tools of pleasure, deliciarum instrumenta, instruments of pleasure. And I thought, okay, this is probably just a really weird turn of phrase by our source, Libby. So I cross referenced it with another source from Valerius Maximus. Nope, he writes exactly the same. So I'm not saying Scipio was going around chucking out the dildos. I'm also not saying he wasn't going around checking out all of the dildos.

[Kate Lister]

What could he possibly have met like dildos? Yes, obviously. And now I think we've got evidence that that was a thing for the Romans, if we ever doubted it.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think there really was 2000 women there selling sex with men and women?

[Alex Meddings]

No, no. Because, like, Roman numbers are just ridiculous. They really always go for the highest possible number. Expect their readers to believe it. You know, yes, we fought 50 million men.

[Kate Lister]

50 million men. And they all had dildos.

[Alex Meddings]

But, I mean, clearly there were enough that it was a bit of. A. Bit of an issue. It was an issue, absolutely.

[Kate Lister]

What is the issue, in your opinion? Because it's not just the Romans that do this. Like, women haven't been allowed into the army for a very, very, very long time, and there's various crappy reasons given for it. But why didn't the Romans want women in the army?

[Alex Meddings]

What we can glean from our sources, there's just an inherent mistrust of women.

[Kate Lister]

There you go.

[Alex Meddings]

And I don't really know where this comes from, but their obsession is. I don't know, but maybe getting too turned on. Watching military drills seems to be a thing, and maybe they're going to do Something they can't control or sell secrets to enemies. That's another one. We have some quotes, for example, from Juvenal, who talks about women with, quote, unflinching faces, face and hard breasts who participate in male discussions of all things politics and military and to be trusted.

[Kate Lister]

Who were they?

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know whether that's meant to be kind of like figurative. And they're quite excited about talking about all things military. There's another story from our favorite Caligula. There was a Legate and his wife who were accused of conspiring against Caligula in Pannonia, kind of modern day Hungary. And one of the charges brought against this woman who was with the camp commander is that she was entering the camp illicitly and watching the soldiers at drill. And you can tell that's written by a man.

[Kate Lister]

You can, can you? When you find stuff like that, you sort of like guys. Guys. Maybe she was, though.

[Alex Meddings]

It's like the sexiest thing imaginable is watching Romans doing push ups. It was that Diet Coke advert from the 90s. You got a bunch of five foot seven guys.

[Kate Lister]

I mean, like gladiator was popular for a lot of reasons, wasn't it? And if it kind of, you know, looked like that. But that's. It's kind of mad that, isn't it? Right. So women aren't allowed on the front line. Did they ever sneak onto the front line? Because sometimes you get stories about that is like, oh my God, there was a soldier and he was amazing. And then, oh no, he got undressed and it was actually a girl. Oh, no.

[Alex Meddings]

I can't find any examples of that in Roman history. No. They thought that women fighting was very, very barbarian. So I think Boudicca.

[Kate Lister]

Boudicca, yes.

[Alex Meddings]

That's something the Romans shouldn't do because they believe that wouldn't be able to control herself. Right. And I mean, the whole story about Boudicca has been written by Roman authors and it does portray her as unable to control herself because she's so excessively cruel.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. What did they think about Boudicca? Because it'd be nice to think that, you know, that like, she had a bit of respect, but I'm not sure that she did or did she?

[Alex Meddings]

There is a weird bit of respect there, actually. Yeah. Because Tacitus main source, her earliest source, I think he sees her as kind of rightfully vengeful because she had cause. Yeah. Her property is confiscated, she's beaten and her daughters are assaulted, raped. And he realizes It's a really bad thing to do that. This is the clincher. I think it's because making an alliance with her would have been more beneficial to the Romans in the long term term. It's not because she's a woman, because they'd have had no issues doing that with captives or enslaved people whatsoever. It's because she was part of the elite of that particular community. And because of all the fallout from it. Guys, he shouldn't have done that. Because we had to go and fight a couple of battles after that. And that was a faff.

[Kate Lister]

See, there's the thing again. There's the thing of just like. Guys. Bloody hell. All right, so women aren't allowed on the front line. Were they allowed anywhere within the legion? Like, sometimes it's not Roman, but, like, I found 18th century, 19th century records of women doing laundry for the soldiers, women feeding the soldiers, that they're there kind of in the background.

[Alex Meddings]

Yes. So you have a group of women called focarii. This literally means a woman of the hearth or a girl of the hearth. And it seems that they are kind of like cooks, housekeepers and concubines, like sexual companions of male soldiers. Where they live is unclear. Possibly they live in these satellite settlements. Possibly some of them live in the camp, for sure. Some of the more senior officers are having their wives and their daughters live on camp with them. But whether the average grunt is highly unlikely, I think. But in some cases we have grave inscriptions, for example, of freed veterans, veterans who have completed their term of service, who are marrying these focardii.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, just another tantalizing example of, like, we know they were there, but nobody thought to actually give us the details about them.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, exactly. Nor how they were treated, because on this particular grave inscription, it's set up by her to him. And apparently he was a fine person. But then you kind of imagine whether he was there watching the stone cutter engrave that while he was still alive.

[Kate Lister]

And also the dad seems quite neutral, that it's like the best thing, you know, your misses can come up with to put on your grave was. It was fine. That's like. It's not great.

[Alex Meddings]

He's all right. That is my.

[Kate Lister]

It's okay. Moving on.

[Alex Meddings]

You also have these networks of women in the fortifications themselves, which are really fascinating, and we get a bit of an insight into that. For example, the letters found in Vindolanda. In Vindolanda, we found this quite famous tablet, which is essentially a birthday letter written by a camp commander's wife called Claudia Severa. To the actual commander of Vindolanda's wife, a woman called Sulpicia Labidina, inviting her to her birthday. And it's quite a famous text and it's kind of nice and very long winded for a birthday invitation. But what interests me a little bit more are some of the other letters around this that were published in the same volume. You have one which is written by Roman soldier of unknown rank, but he's writing directly to Lepidina to excuse himself from not being able to attend her birthday, which indicates that she has heft, doesn't it?

[Kate Lister]

If he's bothering himself to actually rsvp.

[Alex Meddings]

It'S like I can't go for drinks with the boss tonight. I'm really sorry. I'm just like so bogged down in extorting the local population and digging ditches. And then there's another letter which is from a woman, a low born woman we think called Valata. And she's asking Karyalis, who is the fort commander, whether he can have a word with Lepidina about that thing that they talked about and sort it out. So I think there is a matriarch. I wonder whether when some of the Romans are worrying a little bit too much about women in the military, there's kind of no smoke without fire. I suppose in the sense that the women probably did influence some of their husband's thinking, the thinking of the elite officers, the centurions, kind of in the place where the soldiers couldn't get to in the bedroom, behind closed doors.

[Kate Lister]

They're not good at that.

[Alex Meddings]

Yeah, that's the thinking.

[Kate Lister]

I think that's true though. It's like whenever you get these massive military histories and campaigns and political histories, so much of it boils down to who was actually Shaggin who and who had like the secret word in somebody's ear and who influenced that. It's always there and that's the bit we never get recorded.

[Alex Meddings]

And who's dominant in the relationship. I mean, I think it terrifies the Romans to think that the lead centurion, the Pilus Pilus, the centurion of the first cohort, could be maybe a bit hempecked.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, yeah, yeah, imagine that.

[Alex Meddings]

Because it just erodes all of these preconceptions they have about masculinity.

[Kate Lister]

And it was very masculine to be in the army, wasn't it?

[Alex Meddings]

Incredibly, they also had massive hang ups about homosexuality. Unlike the Greeks who did the whole kind of pederasty thing.

[Kate Lister]

We'll get to that in just a sec. I want to Ask you, were they allowed to have girlfriends and wives when they were in the army, or was it like a. No, like you can't do? Because you see that rule coming in quite a lot of like, right, no girlfriend, no sex for you. Basically, that's what they did.

[Alex Meddings]

They were definitely allowed to have sex. I think probably encouraged to have sex, have sex quite often, but they weren't allowed, in theory, to have wives. So Augustus, when he comes in and he sets up the empire, the principate, he becomes sole ruler after about 100 years of civil war. One of the first things he does is he enacts a bunch of marriage legislation. And on the one hand, he passes laws for civilians which makes adultery a crime. It encourages them to get married, and it encourages women to have lots of kids, to be rewarded for having lots of kids by Roman citizen men. Ironically, one of these laws is named after his daughter Julia, who it then turned out was sleeping with the entire Senate and sent to an island.

[Kate Lister]

I was just about to ask you about her. I love that fact. Okay, so Augustus is trying to legislate about this, but what does he say about the army?

[Alex Meddings]

That's it. So I think he's trying to differentiate in this new golden age of peace, the fact that the civilian is now separate from the soldier. And so while civilians should do all of this, it's their duty, it's also the duty of the soldier to be celibate, close brackets, focused, focused, loyal only to his comrades, not distracted by the presence of women and children. Also, there are slightly more practical issues like mobility. I mean, an army can march a lot faster if it doesn't have lots of families and kids.

[Kate Lister]

It is a faff in it. Like, if you think about, like, all of your mates and everything when you're trying to get them all together, like, the amount of drama that goes on about partners of just like, oh, I've got to ask. I've got to ask the missus. And, oh, I've got to pick up. Like, it would just be a lot easier if everyone was single. So putting that into a military scape, you can sort of understand the theory there.

[Alex Meddings]

Imagine the WhatsApp group chat. I mean, it'd be a disaster if you've got all the wives and kids involved as well, and you're trying to, you know, roll out and going conquered beyond the Rhine.

[Kate Lister]

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

[Alltrails]

Out here. It's not only the amazing views, but the way time stretches out a little longer and how the breeze hits Just right at the summit. With alltrails, you can discover nature's best with over 450,000 trails around the world. Download the free app today. I'm not switching my team to some fancy work platform that somehow knows exactly how we work. And its AI features are literally saving us hours every day. We're big fans. And just like that, teams all around the world are falling for Monday.com with intuitive design, seamless AI capabilities and custom workflows, it's the work platform your team will instantly click with. Head to Monday.com, the first work platform you'll love to use.

[Kate Lister]

What about homosexuality then? Because if you're gonna come in, you'd be like, right, so we're gonna take a group of very young men, we're gonna make them all live together in quite intense circumstances. We're gonna send them somewhere sunny. We hope they're all gonna be very loyal to one another. No girlfriends at all. If anyone catches a hooker around here, we're gonna chuck them out and all your object of pleasure as well. This just seemed like.

[Alex Meddings]

Okay, yeah, I have no doubt that from time to time they would have been shagging each other too. But it's not recorded in the literature because of the whole Roman preoccupation with who's the passive party. And you can't be passive, you can't be the penetrated.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Can you explain a bit about that of like, what was their hang up with that?

[Alex Meddings]

It's imma. They saw it as emasculating and at least its own girl of how the legion and how the military is concerned. It's really about being penetrated because they are, with their gladiuses penetrating and the receptive of their gladius of the sword, the scabbard. It's called the wagina. The vagina. That's where we got our vagina from. It's a scabbard in which the Romans put their sword after all of their stabbing. And so it was kind of alright for them to do it with younger boys sometimes. For example, Sulla, one of those warlords from the first century bc, apparently had a group of boys he liked to have hanging around his camp. It was okay to do it with enslaved men. So there's a really shit joke in a playwright, Plautus, who's very unfunny, but one of our only Roman playwrights. And a character asks a slave whether wily was on Watts with his owner. The owner put his sword in the slave's scabbard. Way banter, I guess, really enjoyed that. One. But yeah, between two soldiers, it's tough. We don't have any evidence of that. And in fact, Polybius, who's a Greek author from the Republic, tells us that there was a punishment if you were caught being the passive party, and that is basically your cudgel to death.

[Kate Lister]

And that was specifically. He said specifically if you were the one who was bottoming. Basically, yeah.

[Alex Meddings]

If you're the bottom and you are caught committing what they call disgraceful acts and allowing yourself to be abused, it's kind of a loose translation.

[Kate Lister]

Any punishment for the top?

[Alex Meddings]

We don't really know. Possibly something a little bit lighter. I mean, there is a case in which a top who is a primus pilus, so he's one of the most senior centurions in the entire legion, is caught having sex with a freeborn boy. And he claims that the boy was prostituting himself and that, you know, the legionary, I didn't know. But the punishment for that at the military tribunal, so at the judgment of his comrades, is that he's found guilty and he's thrown into a prison and he's left to starve there.

[Kate Lister]

They weren't messing around, were they? Wow.

[Alex Meddings]

Quite surprising.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Alex Meddings]

And that's a really senior soldier. The rationale, I think, well, Livy tells us, is that also there's a military aspect. So if you made your body vulnerable to sexual pleasure and being penetrated, you also made your body vulnerable to the enemy, which is completely insane because in the tightly packed Roman formation, you're more likely to get a kind of reach around from the guy behind you than the barbarian running towards you with the dirty great spear. But hey, ho, that's kind of the theory.

[Kate Lister]

And Caesar was accused of bottoming for. Was it the king of Nabithia or Bithynia?

[Alex Meddings]

Bithynia, yeah, he was, but that was for political purposes.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think that was a joke or a slur? We're outing Caesar now. Sorry, everybody.

[Alex Meddings]

I've always kind of thought he probably did it and he did it in a way.

[Kate Lister]

He was very slutty, wasn't he? He was very slutty.

[Alex Meddings]

He probably did it. And he was like, please don't tell anyone. The king of the thing. He's like, don't worry, I won't say a thing.

[Kate Lister]

Absolutely no, not a word.

[Alex Meddings]

I just shag Julius Caesar.

[Kate Lister]

You tell everyone. I would tell everybody. It's so. I didn't know that they had like a real hang up. I knew that they had a thing about being the passive and the active. But to like, actively Legislate against it in the army.

[Alex Meddings]

It could work in your favor though, so weirdly so. There's this one anecdote in Suetonius, an imperial biographer who's talking about the emperor Domitian. And Domitian uncovers a plot against him by some sections of the army. And involved in this plot are two soldiers, a tribune and a centurion. But these guys, they say, whoa, when they're in their trial, they say, no, no, you've made a big mistake. We couldn't possibly be involved in this conspiracy because everybody knows that we're bottoms and therefore we're so ostracized they wouldn't have involved us in the plot. And it works, it actually works. Too passive to plots.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, that's crazy. That just shows you that the mindset and the strength of this belief that.

[Alex Meddings]

They had must have had a really.

[Kate Lister]

Good lawyer, an exceptional lawyer. So before I let you go, you've just been, you've been absolutely fascinating. I just wonder, from your opinion, your research that you've had perhaps enforced bottoming aside, do you think it was a good life in the Roman army? Do you think that, like, if I could transport you back now, this might be a career that you would consider?

[Alex Meddings]

It really depends on the time and the place. I mean, if you can get a relatively custi. I mean, it was tough, it was very physically tough to be a Roman legionary with all of the drills and the training and the potential for being executed if you fell asleep on the watch, for example. But if you could get a nice custi posting somewhere like, I don't know, Northern Africa, like Sharm El Saik, you can bring your British wife that you met over on campaign in Vindolanda, it wouldn't be too bad. But then if you're talking about the midst of the Punic wars, when you know you've got like Hannibal and elephants coming out, that wouldn't be good, would it?

[Kate Lister]

That'd be a bad time to join.

[Alex Meddings]

I wouldn't take that, but I think it really depends. It's much better to be in the Roman legion than in any other army that legion might come up against.

[Kate Lister]

But it'd be alright to be a soldier, you reckon?

[Alex Meddings]

We think about 50% of those who enlisted probably survived to retire. And then you'd have retired on a stonking great pension with lots of land and also if you're an auxiliary. So if you're not a citizen to start with, but you're just someone from a local British or German community, then upon your retirement, you're going to be given a diploma, a certificate which grants you and your family citizenship. You step up in terms of the social ladder, you become a citizen with all the rights that entails. So yeah, it's not too bad unless you're one of those unfortunate 50% who don't survive.

[Kate Lister]

So it's all right if you can live through it. That's probably as good as that's gonna get, isn't it?

[Alex Meddings]

It's as good as it gets, I think.

[Kate Lister]

Alex, you've been so much fun to talk to. People wanna know more about you and your work. Where can they find you?

[Alex Meddings]

You? The best place would be my website, Alexander meddings.com I do lots of tours around Rome and on the Appian Way, private tours. There's Also another website, Appia withalex.com where you can book those directly.

[Kate Lister]

Amazing. Thank you so much for talking to us about this. You've been marvelous.

[Alex Meddings]

Thank you, Kate.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Alex for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts and vote for us at the British Podcast Awards. As I mentioned, if you enjoyed this episode, you can also hear more tales of Roman times on our sister podcast, the Ancients. If you would like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us@betwixt history hit.com Coming up, we've got episodes on Catherine the Great and a major Victorian sex work scandal. This podcast was edited by Tom Delaghi and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte 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.

[Tinsley]

Businesses that are selling through the roof. Like Untuck it make selling and for shoppers buying simple with Shopify home of the number one checkout on the planet. And with shop pay you can boost conversions up to 50%. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Untuck it uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com podcastfree all lowercase go to shopify.com podcastfree to upgrade your selling today.

[Alex Meddings]

Hey Tinsley, why don't we use ezkater to order food for staff lunches? Because my 46 page acronym system is so easy.

[Kate Lister]

I just have to salad, stay alert.

[Alex Meddings]

To late arriving deliveries, pie put in.

[Monday.com]

Expenses and guga pie go out and.

[Alltrails]

Get everyone's preferences and allergy information.

[Alex Meddings]

That's supposed to be simple.

[Alltrails]

No, simple is Steven, Irma and Margie prefer lasagna and empanadas.

[Alex Meddings]

Omg. No need to make work life more complicated.

[Alltrails]

Just use EasyCater, the easy way to.

[BetterHelp]

Get food for work.