Articles by Jenny Williamson

The story of Spartacus is the story of the Roman Republic at a crossroads. In the 70s BC, the city of Rome was a powderkeg, the peninsula was wracked with starvation and [...Read More...]

Join us as we travel back in time to the amphitheatre of Capua—mainland Italy’s largest amphitheatre in its day—and experience a day at the gladiatorial games [...Read More...]

What did it take to be a gladiator? Who ended up in the arena, and why? And how did the gladiatorial games—one of the bloodiest sporting events known in the ancient [...Read More...]

We got to sit down the other day with Roifield Brown of podcasts including 10 American Presidents, DumteeDum, and How Jamaica Conquered the World to talk about Ancient [...Read More...]

We invited the Partial Historians onto our show to discuss one of their favorite topics and ours: Spartacus in film and pop culture. Join us in a no-holds-barred conversation [...Read More...]

Become a Patron! Before doing anything else, check out Dr. Rad’s TedEd video on Spartacus! And Dr. G’s on the Vestal Virgins! And check out the Partial Historians [...Read More...]

The Thracians were the most feared professional killers of the ancient world—serving as hired assassins, enforcers, and mercenaries in famous battles from one end of the [...Read More...]

Who was Spartacus, really? It’s not an easy question to answer. The ancient sources agree that he was Thracian, but even this is up for debate. Still, we’re going to go [...Read More...]

During the First Servile War, the epic prophet and fire-breather named Eunus led a rebellion that threatened the Republic to its foundations. For a time, Eunus controlled all [...Read More...]

Become a Patron! Here’s a video that does a great job of summing up the Second Servile War: Our ancient sources include: Diodorus Siculus’ Library of History (G. [...Read More...]