HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-05-10T12:16:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: This ancient New Testament manuscript was covered in “ghost text.” Now, scientists have recovered its lost words
items: When did Roman Britain really end?
items: 2,000 years ago, ancient Roman forces annihilated Jerusalem. Was its destruction inevitable?
items: Mary Beard on why the classics still matter
items: Cleopatra’s rise and fall
items: Friends, Romans, citizens: why Rome opened its doors to people across the empire
items: The Huns terrorised Rome's frontiers – but wanted to keep the ancient empire alive
items: Meet the rebels who destroyed an ancient Roman legion with guerrilla warfare
items: The devastating Jewish revolt against the Roman empire
items: The ancient Romans knew the power of entertainment as propaganda – here's the proof

This ancient New Testament manuscript was covered in “ghost text.” Now, scientists have recovered its lost words
type: item
date: 2026-05-10T12:15:47.000Z
creator: Martyn Whittock
subject: General ancient history
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Researchers have reunited fragments of a sixth-century Greek manuscript, revealing ‘ghost’ text and new evidence for how early Christian scripture was read, understood and preserved
encoded: The study of ancient written texts allows us engage with the thought processes of writers who lived in societies before the invention of printing, opening a window into their ideological and cultural worlds. However, the survival of such ancient texts can also be something of a lottery. Ancient manuscripts – whether written on papyrus or vellum – can fall prey to natural decay, from damp to the appetites of carpet beetles, termites and mice. They might also be revised, destroyed, worn out, reused, abandoned when printed versions came into favour or deliberately purged for ideological reasons. In short, the survival of any ancient text depended on a great many factors over the course of its long and often fragile life. One of the areas with a long and impressive tradition of textual analysis is that of New Testament studies. Studying the texts that have survived from ancient scriptoria to the present day involves specialist skills in identifying text transmission and revision, identifying ‘families’ of manuscripts and the textual relationships between them, and evaluating the significance of how later users and revisers interacted with a manuscript. Read more | A history of the Bible: who wrote it and when? The skills required include palaeographical study of ancient handwriting and letter forms, linguistic analysis and cutting-edge scientific processes used to recover useable textual material. Such research also includes study of the development of chapter lists, summaries, prologues and other annotations in manuscripts, which were designed to facilitate use of the Book of Acts and letters of the New Testament in the Christian community of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. While biblical manuscripts, such as Chester Beatty I and II, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, are well known, it is particularly significant when a new manuscript is discovered or fragments reunited. Now a team of academics led by Professor Garrick Allen at the University of Glasgow have re…

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When did Roman Britain really end?
type: item
date: 2026-04-27T15:54:01.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman Britain
description: Nicholas Higham explains why the story of the decline of Roman Britain, and the rise of England, is more complicated than you might have assumed
encoded: How did England – and Englishness – emerge from the final days of Roman Britain? And what separated Englishness from Britishness? Emeritus professor Nicholas Higham –whose latest book is How England Began: From Roman Britain to the Anglo-Saxons – speaks to James Osborne to explore the twisting and turning tale of England's origins from post-Roman Britain: a story of clashing cultures, religion, and migration.

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2,000 years ago, ancient Roman forces annihilated Jerusalem. Was its destruction inevitable?
type: item
date: 2026-04-22T16:47:05.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: The first of the Jewish-Roman wars was interrupted by one of the defining events of the 1st century, and gave birth to one of ancient Rome’s most powerful dynasties
encoded: In AD 70, Roman forces captured and destroyed Jerusalem after a brutal siege. The fall of the city was one of the defining events of the first century. It marked the crushing of a major revolt in Judea – a region roughly corresponding to parts of modern Israel and Palestine – and reshaped both Jewish and Roman history. It also cemented the power of a new ruling family in Rome, the Flavians, whose legitimacy depended in part on military success. But this outcome certainly wasn’t inevitable. The destruction of Jerusalem stemmed from a very specific chain of events; a convergence of political chaos at the heart of the Roman empire and deep internal divisions within the city of Jerusalem itself. Together, these forces turned what might have remained a contained regional rebellion into a prolonged and devastating war. Rome’s original strategy When rebellion broke out in Judea in AD 66, Rome didn’t immediately move to annihilate Jerusalem. Revolts weren’t too perturbing to the Roman emperors, who had dealt with regional uprisings before – it was, in many ways, the cost of having an empire. The task of restoring order was given to the general Vespasian, an experienced commander who had previously led campaigns in Britain and Germany. In the Roman system, such generals were expected to stabilise provinces and reassert imperial control, as well as achieving military victories. “Vespasian’s response is a strategy of going from place to place in the countryside, defeating town after town,” explains historian Barry Strauss, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. Some communities surrendered while those who didn’t were “massacred, or enslaved”. This was a standard Roman method of counterinsurgency. Rather than attacking the strongest position first – in this case Jerusalem, where the rebels had retreated to – the army would systematically secure the surrounding region to gain power in case of a siege and isolate the seat of the resistance. By advancing through towns and villages,…

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Mary Beard on why the classics still matter
type: item
date: 2026-04-22T07:52:37.000Z
creator: Charlotte Vosper
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: After working in the classics for more than 50 years, Mary Beard reflects on her career and her evolving relationship with the ancient world
encoded: What's the role of the classical past in the modern day? In this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, internationally renowned classicist Mary Beard reflects on her long career, and discusses the ongoing importance of the subject. Speaking to Charlotte Vosper about her new book, Talking Classics: The Shock of The Old, Mary explores her relationship with antiquity – and explains why the ancient past is still relevant today.

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Cleopatra’s rise and fall
type: item
date: 2026-04-21T07:02:30.000Z
creator: Professor Kate Williams
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
description: Cleopatra is remembered as a romantic figure, but she was one of the most formidable leaders of the ancient world. In episode two of her HistoryExtra Academy series on royal women, historian Kate Williams considers a life of power, risk and survival
encoded: For centuries, Cleopatra has been remembered as a seductress, reduced to a sultry and sexualised stereotype. But in reality, she was something far more dangerous, as Professor Kate Williams explores in this second episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series. Discover the life of Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, whose intelligence, political skill and ambition helped her navigate one of the most dangerous periods in ancient history – and how she remained determined to stand against the power of ancient Rome. View Green Video on the source website Enjoyed this episode? Find more in episode three. Discover more episodes of the academy series on royal women, and explore our previous series on royal residences Professor Kate Williams is a historian, presenter the author of several books including Regina :A New History of Women and Power (June 2026)

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Friends, Romans, citizens: why Rome opened its doors to people across the empire
type: item
date: 2026-04-19T11:30:48.000Z
creator: Dr Shushma Malik
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
subject: Life in ancient Rome
subject: Roman rulers
subject: Roman women
description: From Romulus’s open-city policy to Claudius’s reforms, citizenship was used by Rome as both a reward and a weapon. And, as Shushma Malik explains, it enabled the burgeoning empire to build power and define identity
encoded: What made Rome so powerful? Writing in the early 16th century in his Discourses on Livy, Niccolò Machiavelli (best known for The Prince) argued that the secret lay not in geography or luck, but in people – and in a ruthless flexibility in acquiring them. “Those who design a city to create a great empire must strive with great diligence to fill it full of inhabitants,” he wrote (as translated in 1997 by JC and P Bondanella). “This may be done in two ways: either through love or through force. It is done through love by keeping the pathways open and safe for foreigners who wish to come there to live… it is done through force, after nearby cities are destroyed, by sending their inhabitants to live in your city.” Rome enlarged its population through both of those two methods, enabling it to build enormous fighting forces – Machiavelli cited a figure of 80,000 men, compared with just 20,000 for Athens or Sparta at their peak. Rome flourished, said Machiavelli, not because it had an advantageous location but because of one simple but powerful policy: it made outsiders into Romans. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-113636408-4087aad-e1776332738730.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A bronze sculpture shows a she‑wolf standing alert with her head turned, while two human infants beneath her reach toward her teats." title="A bronze statue shows Romulus and Remus suckled by a she-wolf. According to legend the twins, who founded Rome in 753 BC, were themselves refugees (Image by Getty Images)" /> This concept was integral to the city’s founding story. Romans were not from Rome – as Athenians were thought to be born from the earth of Athens – but travelled and settled there as refugees. According to myth – specifically, Virgil’s epic Aeneid – Aeneas came to Italy after fleeing from a burning Troy. Romulus and Remus, twins supposedly descended from the line of kings that traced back to Aeneas’s son Ascanius, were rescued fr…

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The Huns terrorised Rome's frontiers – but wanted to keep the ancient empire alive
type: item
date: 2026-04-11T12:30:28.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Feared as savage invaders, the Huns posed a serious threat to Rome – but their goal wasn’t conquest, or Roman annihilation
encoded: To the Romans of the late 4th and 5th centuries AD, the threat posed by the Huns was akin to a nightmare made real. They were lightning fast, brutally violent, and as culturally unfamiliar as any people the Romans had ever encountered. They seemed to emerge suddenly from beyond the empire’s frontiers, bringing with them destruction and fear. Roman writers described them in vivid, unsettling terms, presenting them as the ultimate barbarians. The arrival of the Huns on the frontier of the Roman empire coincided with a period historians often describe as the ‘Migration Period’ – a time of large-scale population movements across Europe, in which multiple groups were displaced and resettled, or otherwise pushed into Roman territory. Yet for all the alarm they caused, the Huns didn’t want to destroy the Roman empire. They wanted to exploit it. The reasons why reveal as much about Rome’s internal condition, as about the Huns themselves. Who were the Huns? The Huns were part of a broader pattern of migration and movement across Eurasia in late antiquity. “They’re one of a series of non-Roman groups migrating, we assume, from Eastern Asia, possibly away from the Chinese Empire,” explains archaeologist Miles Russell, while discussing the life of Atilla the Hun on the HistoryExtra podcast. Their precise origins remain debated, but many historians link them to steppe nomadic traditions that stretched across Central Asia, where highly mobile horse-based societies had long dominated. Unlike settled agricultural societies based around static farming and protected settlements, they were very itinerant. Listen now | From the Mongols to the Huns: the nomads who dominated Eurasia “They fight predominantly on horseback,” Russell says. This fighting style was a key factor in their military effectiveness. Their speed and flexibility made them difficult for Roman forces, accustomed to more structured warfare, to counter. Hunnic warriors were particularly known for their use of composite b…

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Meet the rebels who destroyed an ancient Roman legion with guerrilla warfare
type: item
date: 2026-04-01T11:39:43.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: In theory, putting down the rebels of the First Jewish Revolt should have been easy for the mighty Roman empire. But strategic mistakes and complacency meant that the reality was very different
encoded: In AD 66, a Roman army marching through the hills west of Jerusalem was ambushed and largely destroyed. For an empire that prided itself on military discipline and dominance, the loss was quite remarkable. Roman legions were symbols of imperial authority, consisting of around 5,000 heavily trained infantry soldiers, supported by cavalry and auxiliary units. They represented the core of ancient Rome’s military power. To see one shattered by provincial rebels was, as historian Professor Barry Strauss notes, “a tremendous humiliation for Rome. It’s bad for business to have provincials destroying a legion”. The disaster took place during the early stages of what would become the First Jewish Revolt – a major uprising by Jewish groups in the Roman province of Judea against Roman rule, driven by political tensions and religious conflict. It was a struggle that would eventually draw in tens of thousands of Roman troops. But the defeat itself wasn’t an isolated accident. It exposed a deeper problem in the way Rome governed its empire. Ancient Rome’s blind spot At its height, the Roman empire controlled vast territories and populations with relatively limited military resources. “The Romans had a relatively small army – about 300,000 men – to control an empire stretching roughly 3,000 miles with a population of perhaps 50 million people,” Strauss explains, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast about the Jewish-Roman wars. This made Rome heavily dependent on its military strength, yes, but also on administrative efficiency. This meant that Rome relied heavily on cooperation from local populations, particularly local elites who could help maintain order. There was also an underlying assumption that Roman rule would ultimately be accepted – whether through force, cultural attraction, or political advantage. That assumption was often misplaced. Read more | The overshadowed ancient empire that rivalled Rome with maritime might and an iron fist “Rome underestimated the Jewish revol…

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The devastating Jewish revolt against the Roman empire
type: item
date: 2026-03-18T08:00:18.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: Barry Strauss reflects on the Jewish-Roman wars, exploring the roots – and legacy – of the conflict
encoded: It was under the rule of the infamous emperor Nero that the Great Revolt, the first of the Jewish-Roman wars, began, sparking many decades of continuous conflict. Speaking to James Osborne, historian and author Barry Strauss traces the story, following the the fate of the Jewish rebels and the legacy of the conflict.

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The ancient Romans knew the power of entertainment as propaganda – here's the proof
type: item
date: 2026-03-14T10:35:05.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: In ancient Rome, putting on theatrical plays was not just a form of entertainment – it became a powerful tool of propaganda
encoded: Lysistrata by Aristophanes; Antigone by Sophocles; Medea by Euripides. Each is a play from ancient Greece, still performed on stages across the world today. Roman plays, on the other hand, are much less common. “We might think of theatre today as belonging to the cultural sphere, but in ancient Rome, it belonged to an incredibly political sphere,” says Dr Jessica Clarke, a research associate at the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London and the author of A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “Entertainment is never neutral,” she says, but in ancient Rome, the theatre was explicitly political. “In Rome they didn't have independent theatres, so they didn’t have shows put on outside of politically controlled events.” This fact, she says, means that plays from ancient Rome have failed to remain as relevant as their Greek equivalents. The history of ancient Roman theatre Roman theatre hadn’t always been so overtly political; early Roman theatre was a “hodgepodge” of traditions and practices from previous empires and different areas of modern-day Italy, Clarke says. The ancient historian Livy, who Clarke says is the main source of information we have on the origins of Roman theatre, draws a "very neat line from actors arriving from Etruria to Roman theatre," Clarke says. While Etruscan performances did influence what would become Roman theatre, there’s more likely a “complicated web” of things that became the Roman theatrical tradition, including Greek plays translated into Latin and farcical plays from Campania in southern Italy. Read more | Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide In general, “Rome tended to absorb cultural influences, rather than inventing its own,” she adds – but it certainly gave theatre its own cultural significance. Theatrical shows would be put on at all kinds of events in Roman culture, including religious festivals, the triumphant returns of Roman generals…

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