Podcast
The Pax Romana Podcast
Hosted by Professor Colin Elliott · EN
The assassination of Julius Caesar 2,000 years ago unleashed a wild era of Roman emperors, dark conspiracies, intense battles, economic booms and busts and profound religious shifts. Was this truly the Roman Empire's golden age? On the weekly Pax Romana Podcast, Historian Colin Elliott brings gripping stories from Roman history to life. Dive into history starting in episode 1 , or pick your poison from our catalogue: the birth of the empire in the Age of Augustus, Nero's Great Fire, the rise of Christianity, the wisdom and wars of Marcus Aurelius or the military chaos of the third century AD.
29episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Stilicho and the Failing Western Roman Empire - The Pax Romana Podcast 102
2w ago00:24:14Tap to summarizeWhat does it take to hold an empire together when the emperor is a child? Who really rules— the man with the title, or the man with the army? And how long can that arrangement last before it begins to crack? In the early fifth century AD, the western Roman Empire faced precisely this problem. A boy, Honorius, sat on the throne, while a general, Stilicho, governed in his name, winning wars, managing crises, and shaping policy. For a time, it worked. The empire held together, threats were contained, and order seemed restored. But beneath that stability lay tensions—between appearance and reality, authority and power—that would eventually prove impossible to sustain.Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →The Roman Empire's Messy Divorce - The Pax Romana Podcast 101
Apr 1500:20:50Tap to summarizeIn 395, the Roman Empire did not collapse, but it lost the ability to act as a single, coordinated system. Two emperors inherited the empire—Arcadius in the East and Honorius in the West—but neither truly governed. Power lay with the men around them. Among those men, one stood out: Stilicho, the western general who claimed to act for the unity of the empire itself.Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →Theodosius and the Last Years of Roman Unification - The Pax Romana Podcast 100
Apr 100:23:54Tap to summarizeOn January 19, AD 379, at Sirmium, a Latin-speaking westerner from Spain named Flavius Theodosius was invested with the imperial purple. He was a man for the times but, in many ways, a man out of place; he was expected to rule a Greek-speaking East and a church deeply fractured by doctrinal disputes. His reign, spanning nearly sixteen years, would see him outlive his imperial colleagues and briefly, yet significantly, unify the Roman Empire under his sole rule for the last time in history. Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →The Massacre at Thessalonica - The Pax Romana Podcast 99
Mar 1300:19:04Tap to summarizeAfter the disaster of Adrianople, the Roman Empire struggled to rebuild its army and restore order. But in AD 390, a riot in the city of Thessalonica spiraled into one of the most infamous episodes of late Roman history. How did the arrest of a single charioteer lead to the death of a Roman general? Why did imperial troops suddenly turn on a crowd in the city’s hippodrome? And how did the aftermath bring a powerful bishop into conflict with the emperor himself?Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →The Battle of Adrianople: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Empire - The Pax Romana Podcast 98
Feb 2400:19:40Tap to summarizeThe Battle of Adrianople in August of AD 378 was one of Rome’s worst military disasters. A refugee crisis at the edge of the empire turned into a bloody afternoon battle that shattered the Roman and changed imperial policy forever. What led the Romans into the Battle of Adrianople? Why did the emperor Valens rush into battle? What did the loss mean for the future of the Empire?Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →Jovian: The Forgotten Emperor - The Pax Romana Podcast 97
Feb 400:22:40Tap to summarizeJovian ruled the Roman Empire for barely eight months (AD 363–364), yet his reign reveals how imperial power functioned in moments of extreme crisis. Elevated suddenly after Julian’s death deep in Persia, Jovian faced the immediate task of saving a stranded Roman army. He chose negotiation over annihilation and stabilized Rome’s eastern frontier for generations. His death from carbon monoxide poisoning cut short what was sure to be a contentious reign.Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →Did the Emperor Aurelian Break or Fix the Monetary System of the Roman Empire? - The Pax Romana Podcast 96
Jan 1400:40:08Tap to summarizeDid the emperor Aurelian's big coin reform in the 270s AD shatter public trust in the money system? Did it shift value from faith in the government to just the metal in the coins? I wrote most of an article addressing these issues, but never got around to publishing it. So I use this podcast episode to make an argument that the system was already crumbling decades before Aurelian. And Aurelian's changes were in fact a clever fix. The price inflation that followed was disruptive, but it also proved the reform worked, clearing up confusion and stabilizing markets.Read Haklai (2011), 'Aurelian’s Monetary Reform: Between Debasement and Public Trust'.Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →Did Smallpox Plague Ancient Rome? - The Pax Romana Podcast 95
Dec 2400:21:04Tap to summarizeDisease shaped population levels, military strength and the stability of imperial institutions in the Roman Empire. Smallpox, a highly lethal viral disease known from the early modern period and eradicated only in the twentieth century, has long been assumed to have been part of that ancient disease environment. A recent-ish article in the Journal of Roman Studies challenges that assumption, showing that there is no firm evidence that the classical form of smallpox existed in the Roman world. This article helped shape my own thinking in my book, Pox Romana, and I'm thrilled to take the time to explain the article's argument and why it matters for Roman history.Read Newfield et al. (2022), 'Smallpox's Antiquity in Doubt'Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →Julian The Apostate's Persian Disaster - The Pax Romana Podcast 94
Dec 1200:21:20Tap to summarize363 AD: Emperor Julian, Rome’s last pagan ruler, wagered everything on a massive invasion of Persia to eclipse Alexander the Great and prove that the old gods blessed his empire. He crossed into Persia with tens of thousands of soldiers and a thousand supply ships. Fortresses fell, cities burned and Ctesiphon itself lay within reach. But Julian's careful efforts were undone by his own hubris. His death in battle ended both an emperor and pagan Rome’s final hope. Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
Transcribe →Julian and the Pagan Counter-Revolution - The Pax Romana Podcast 93
Nov 2100:19:19Tap to summarizeIn AD 361, Flavius Claudius Julianus--Julian "The Apostate"--entered Constantinople as the unexpected sole Augustus of the Roman world. Here was a thirty-year-old philosopher-king who had spent the previous decade dissimulating Christianity while privately offering midnight sacrifices to pagan gods.He had roughly twenty months left to live. In that brief span he attempted nothing less than the systematic reversal of forty years of Constantinian religious policy. Was Julian genuinely committed to a pluralistic empire in which paganism would simply be allowed to reassert itself, or was his proclaimed “toleration” from the very beginning a calculated strategy of cultural and institutional strangulation designed to break Christianity without ever giving it the propaganda gift of martyrs?Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFCYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPEBuy Professor Elliott's book:Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World.
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