Emperors of Rome

Documentary series examining the lives and reigns of ancient Roman rulers AI summary

Nightlight Productions Visit website › History · EN · 276 episodes · latest 2026-10-27

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What it is about

“Great empires are not maintained by timidity.” - Tacitus. A podcast series looking at the rulers of the ancient Roman empire, by Dr Rhiannon Evans, Dr Caillan Davenport and Matt Smith.

Publisher’s own description, taken unchanged from the podcast feed.
(c) 2026 Nightlight Productions

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Latest episodes

The Triple Triumph

2026-10-27 · 43 min

It is the summer of 29 BCE. The civil wars are over. Antony and Cleopatra are dead. Egypt has fallen. The victorious Octavian returns to Rome. What follows is three days of spectacle unlike anything the city had seen.…
The War of the Words (Live at the Melbourne Museum)

2026-09-16 · 54 min

In this special live episode recorded at the Melbourne Museum we set aside the military narrative to look at something just as fierce: the propaganda war waged between Octavian and Antony in the years before Actium. The…
The Young Warlord

2026-08-19 · 49 min

The decade after Caesar’s murder is make or break for Octavian. He is very young and inexperienced, he is often between Mark Antony and the senate, and he needs to avenge Caesar and become his acknowledged heir. Despite…
The Rise of Octavian

2026-07-07 · 33 min

How did Octavius become Octavian? We trace what we know of Octavius’ early life in Rome during a tumultuous era of violence and civil conflict, through to Julius Caesar’s unexpected adoption of a perennially sickly…
Octavian Before Octavian

2026-06-09 · 43 min

Before Augustus reached his great heights as Emperor, before he was even Octavian, he was Giaus Octavius, born to a relatively humble family and giving no indication of the greatness he would achieve. While his father…
Germania

2026-05-27 · 35 min

Tacitus’s Germania is one of the most fascinating, strange, and surprisingly modern texts to survive from the ancient world. Part ethnographic survey, part moral provocation, part geopolitical warning, it describes the…
Augusti Retirement

2026-04-24 · 31 min

In 305 CE, a carefully staged transition took place: the emperors Diocletian and Maximian retired, handing power to a new generation of rulers. Exactly how it happened is still debated, but the act itself was…
The Tetrarchic Persecution of Christians

2026-03-31 · 43 min

In the early fourth century the emperors of the Tetrarchy initiated what later Christians would call the “Great Persecution.” Under Diocletian and his colleagues, churches were demolished, sacred texts seized, and…
How the Tetrarchy Won the East

2026-03-21 · 35 min

With the tetrarch system still taking shape, Diocletian and his Caesar Galerius come under growing pressure in the East, facing rebellion from Egypt and invasion from the Persian King Naresh. A series of hard campaigns,…
Reclaiming Britannia

2026-02-28 · 28 min

Constantius was elevated to Caesar with one primary mission - retake Britannia for the Roman empire. In the later half of the fourth century the province and parts of western Gaul had retained a stubborn sort of…

Episode details from the publisher’s feed. Playback happens at the publisher.

Publisher details

Oldest episode in feed: 03/2014 · over 12 years
Typical length: 30 min
Format: Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone
Keywords: history, julius caesar, caesar, rhiannon evans, rome, roman history, biography, emperor

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