Articles by Jenny Williamson

We opened this episode with a passage from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien. And here’s an awesome clip of his Oliphants in action in the movie [...Read More...]

In this episode, it’s Roman Emperors behaving badly–and Praetorian Prefects behaving even worse. Beginning with Caligula, Emperors were assaulted in their homes, [...Read More...]

So…yeah. Sometimes Genn and I will look at each other after an episode ends and go, “did all that actually happen?” This was definitely one of those. Our [...Read More...]

The Praetorian Guard was the elite military unit tasked with protecting the Emperors of Rome–except when they held the assassin’s blade themselves. The [...Read More...]

Thanks for listening! We hope you enjoyed that story as much as we enjoyed putting it together. We relied pretty heavily on Ross Cowan’s Roman Guardsman: 62 BC-AD 324. [...Read More...]

Some of Rome’s child emperors became tyrants. Others were taken advantage of by stronger regents and family members–frequently with tragic results. In this [...Read More...]

  First off, here’s a little Monty Python goodness. One imagines that the siege of Aquileia went down more or less like this (although historians are mixed as to [...Read More...]

Hey, thanks for listening! We hope you enjoyed the episode! First off, here’s what these people looked like: Caracalla Elagabalus They look so different. Elagabalus is [...Read More...]

In ancient Rome, being made Emperor could be a death sentence. Experienced generals and statesmen lasted weeks or months sometimes. In some cases, children were raised to the [...Read More...]

This episode was really intense–both to research and record. If you’re now as obsessed with the human experience of ancient siege warfare as we are, we have a lot [...Read More...]