HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-27T10:46:21.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Have archaeologists just found proof of ancient Carthage's legendary anti-Roman war weapon?
items: This ordinary ancient Roman object is still used today – and has hardly changed
items: Why Rome fell
items: Toilets through time, from sponges on sticks to medieval privies
items: From secret cults to Christianity, how did ancient Roman religion change so dramatically?
items: Going on strike in ancient Rome
items: Meet the “grossly underappreciated” Roman emperor who became the enemy of the ancient world
items: Why Pompeii's tragedy still captivates us today
items: How ancient Pompeii was rediscovered
items: Long before the ancient Roman empire, a rival superpower looked set for supremacy

Have archaeologists just found proof of ancient Carthage's legendary anti-Roman war weapon?
type: item
date: 2026-02-27T10:46:21.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: During the Second Punic War, the famous Carthaginian general Hannibal led his forces to numerous victories. But did he really take war elephants across the Alps?
encoded: The Punic Wars – and the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) specifically – were a definitive chapter in the history of the ancient world. Fought between the formidable Mediterranean power of Carthage and the upstart Roman Republic, the conflict ultimately saw the balance of power shift decisively away from the Carthaginians and towards the Romans. Had Rome fallen, Carthage would have retained its influence, and Roman civilisation may never have grown out of its infancy. Instead, the Romans won. Rome’s destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, at the end of the Third Punic War, eliminated its greatest rival. In victory, they took hold of the ancient Mediterranean, using it as a springboard for imperial expansion across Europe, North Africa and the Near East. It wasn’t until the invasions associated with Attila the Hun centuries later that Rome would again face such an existential threat. But that’s not to say that Roman victory was inevitable. During the apogee of the war, the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca inflicted a series of devastating defeats on Roman armies. At Cannae in 216 BC, perhaps 50,000 Roman soldiers died in a single day – one of the worst military disasters in Roman history – while earlier victories at Trebia (218 BC) and Lake Trasimene (217 BC) had already demonstrated Hannibal’s military genius. Read more | Long before the ancient Roman empire, a rival superpower looked set for supremacy His most audacious, move, however, was none of these. Marching from Carthaginian territories in Iberia – modern-day Spain – Hannibal led an expeditionary force through southern Gaul and across the Alps, where he traversed the imposing mountainous slopes with a vast army that included war elephants. It was a force that arrived at the gates of Rome, pushing for a Roman surrender. It’s an astonishing story that underlines Hannibal’s determination, and most of all, his astounding logistical capabilities. But for all its fame, did it really happen? While many historians and arc…

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This ordinary ancient Roman object is still used today – and has hardly changed
type: item
date: 2026-02-25T16:27:50.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: From dealing with nits to learning the three Rs, ancient Roman childhood bore some striking similarities to the modern experience
encoded: Life for children in ancient Rome would have looked very different depending on where in the huge Roman empire you lived, what social class your family was from, and your gender. And while childhood in ancient Rome would have looked very different from the lives of children today, there were a few surprising similarities. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Bettany Hughes, a historian and author of the children’s book There Was a Roman in Your Garden, explains that “there are strange things that connect the experience of being a child in ancient Rome with the experience of being a child in the 21st century.” One overlap between childhood today and in ancient Rome is the fine-toothed nit comb, designed to remove head lice. “Nit combs are exactly the same design as they were in the ancient world – this was obviously the perfect design because it hasn't changed over the millennia,” Hughes says. But while the nit combs of today tend to be made of plastic, the ancient Romans used a different material for theirs: boxwood, a type of wood commonly used for small, carved items. “Boxwood has slight antibacterial properties, which was probably a really good thing [because] if you have nits, you scratch. Boxwood would hopefully prevent the spread of bacterial infection,” Hughes says. “The Romans were very smart, and [people in] the ancient world were much better at understanding nature and us being a part of nature than we are today,” Hughes says. Boxwood wasn’t the only plant that the Romans used for medicinal purposes. According to writings by Dioscorides, a Greek physician who was considered to be an authority on plants and plant medicine in the Roman period, oil made from walnuts was also used on children’s heads – albeit to help with alopecia or baldness, and to make the hair “pleasing.” He also recommended the “scrapings” from various gourds or squashes to help with sunstroke in children, and said that if children ate peonies, it could help to prevent kidney stones. Fam…

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Why Rome fell
type: item
date: 2026-02-23T15:30:21.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Historical events
subject: Life in ancient Rome
subject: Roman rulers
description: How do civilisations collapse? That was the question at the heart of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Two hundred and fifty years after it was published, Guy de la Bédoyère argues that Gibbon’s magnum opus remains a landmark in the writing of history
encoded: Sometimes, a single narrative comes to dominate how we remember a year. So it is with 1776. This, as every history lover knows, was the date that the American colonies declared their independence, beginning the history of the United States. But back in the old world, another, rather more modest event would have a profound influence on cultural history. For 1776 was also the year that the first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published in London. And though it may not have spawned a nation, there’s little doubt that the book’s release was a landmark moment in the writing of history. Authored by Edward Gibbon, an essayist and, at this time, Whig MP for Liskeard, this epic work eventually grew to encompass the story of the Roman empire from the accession of the emperor Trajan in AD 98 through to 1453, when the Ottomans captured Constantinople and the rump of the Eastern empire fell. The last of its six volumes appeared in 1788 just before another tumultuous year in global history, 1789, when the opening salvos were fired in the French Revolution. What, in the year of its 250th anniversary, are we to make of Decline and Fall? Is it coincidental that a book written at a time of rebellion, and where so much of the narrative is about political intrigues and the loss of power, connected with 18th-century readers? And how did a history based on limited resources that few scholars would refer to today escape its time to become a classic? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-122219029webready-2206e03-e1771851490986.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A life‑sized marble statue of a Roman leader stands upright against a carved stone wall. The figure wears ornate armor decorated with reliefs, including a central face and small mythological scenes. A heavy cloak drapes over the left shoulder and arm, adding a sense of movement to the otherwise rigid pose. The right arm is raised, holding a …

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Toilets through time, from sponges on sticks to medieval privies
type: item
date: 2026-02-20T09:03:23.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: What was it like to do your business in a Roman communal toilet? How did Romans really use a sponge on a stick? HistoryExtra's David Musgrove explains all
encoded: In this whistle-stop tour of how our ancestors have used the loo, HistoryExtra’s David Musgrove heads to the National Trust's Chedworth Roman Villa in Gloucestershire, to see what we can learn from the most universal of all experiences. With expertise from historians Hannah Platts, James Wright, Tracy Borman and Jerry White, he explores the ins and outs of how toilets have worked through time – from innovations in carrying away our waste to a remarkable ancient edict that demanded flatulence. View Green Video on the source website Find out more about the history of toilets in our podcast mini-series, when Musgrove revisits long-past lavatories in the company of leading historical experts to uncover what we can learn about our ancestors and their eras – from the sociable long-drops of Roman Britain and draughty medieval garderobes to the cesspits of the Victorian slums.

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From secret cults to Christianity, how did ancient Roman religion change so dramatically?
type: item
date: 2026-02-14T11:15:15.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Ancient Rome didn’t abandon its gods overnight. The rise of Christianity was a slow transformation of the cult-based religious order that had structured Roman life for centuries
encoded: The word ‘cult’ is a loaded one in modern language. It might make you think of hooded figures huddled in dark rooms, perhaps organised around a singularly charismatic leader who exercises immense control over members’ lives. But in the ancient Roman empire, cults were an ordinary cornerstone of society and a pillar of religious life. This difference between modern and ancient Roman notions of cults is central to understanding one of the most significant social transformations in western history: how the Roman world moved from a polytheistic system of many gods, to a Christian empire centred on a single deity – the Abrahamic God. As professor Philip Freeman explains, “the word cult tends to have a negative connotation, but it’s actually a good word, and we use it all the time in academic contexts.” So what exactly were these cults, and what impact did they have on the death of the old Roman gods, and the adoption of Christianity? Roman religion as social infrastructure The Romans were far less concerned with what individuals believed internally than with whether they performed the correct rituals in the proper way. There was no sacred book that defined orthodoxy, and no central institution equivalent to a church. Instead, religion functioned through a web of practices embedded in everyday life and anchored around cults. Cults were places where people met regularly, shared meals and honoured a god together. “Think of a cult as a social group,” says Freeman, who was speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. One of the clearest examples of a cult still exists beneath modern London. “If you go to the financial district, you can visit the Temple of Mithras in the basement of a bank,” Freeman says. This temple, dedicated to the god Mithras, was discovered in the 1950s. Mithraism was one of the most widespread cults in the Roman world, especially among soldiers and officials. Read more | Constantine the Great: the emperor who created Europe “That was a cult found all over the R…

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Going on strike in ancient Rome
type: item
date: 2026-02-10T08:00:41.000Z
creator: Jon Bauckham
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: Sarah E Bond reveals why the history of labour resistance goes back much further than you might think
encoded: Strikes and unions may seem like modern inventions, but they’ve existed for much longer than many of us realise. Historian Sarah E Bond talks to Jon Bauckham about how people in ancient Rome challenged authority and withheld their labour – from disgruntled mint workers to rebellious charioteers.

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Meet the “grossly underappreciated” Roman emperor who became the enemy of the ancient world
type: item
date: 2026-02-03T11:18:15.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Ancient Rome’s reputation for bad emperors partly rests on hostile sources written after the fact – and Domitian may be the clearest case of how politics shaped historical memory
encoded: The moral map of the Roman empire might seem fairly simple. There were good emperors, who governed wisely and brought stability, and there were bad emperors, whose tenures dissolved into cruelty and paranoia. Nero and Caligula are the names most firmly and famously in the latter category – but Domitian, who ruled from AD 81 to 96, is often considered not far behind. But according to historian Edward J Watts our certainty about the flaws of these ‘worst’ Roman emperors rests on shaky foundations. And as for Domitian? “He is grossly underappreciated,” says Watts, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. How ancient Roman history was written Most surviving narratives of the early Roman emperors who followed Julius Caesar were written decades after the events they describe. Their authors were members of Rome’s senatorial and literary elite, who were deeply invested in the dynamics and mechanics of power. What they were not, Watts asserts, were neutral observers. Among the most influential was Suetonius, who Watts describes as “an incredibly gifted biographer”. His account The Twelve Caesars remains one of the most widely read accounts of imperial Rome. It gives us biographies of Julius Caesar, and then the next 11 emperors. Why end there? The answers, says Watts, is “because the last of them is the emperor Domitian”. Read more | Long before the ancient Roman empire, a rival superpower looked set for supremacy The narrative arc culminates in Domitian’s reign as emperor. He is presented as the endpoint of Rome’s moral and political decline. His assassination is framed as a cleansing restoration, clearing the way for a new and better order to take root. That framing shaped how later generations understood both Domitian and the nature of imperial power itself, says Watts. Caesar: Death of a Dictator Member exclusive | On the Ides of March 44 BC, the most famous Roman in history was murdered. Julius Caesar's assassination transformed Rome forever, and the image of his bloody to…

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Why Pompeii's tragedy still captivates us today
type: item
date: 2026-02-01T08:00:09.000Z
creator: Kev Lochun
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: Historian Jess Venner explains what the greatest finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum tell us about Roman life
encoded: When the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by ash spewed out of Vesuvius in AD 79, so too were their inhabitants, frozen in the moment of their deaths. In the final episode of our four-part series, Kev Lochun is joined by historian Dr Jess Venner to discuss the myriad legacies of Pompeii. They explore the dangers of imprinting stories on mortal remains, the Pompeiian propensity for erotic art – and why, centuries on, Pompeii still echoes through the ages. Want to know more about the story of Pompeii? HistoryExtra's Kev Lochun has curated a selection of essential reading from the HistoryExtra archives to help you explore the story of the cataclysm, the Roman way of life and the nature of the Roman empire. Go beyond the podcast.

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How ancient Pompeii was rediscovered
type: item
date: 2026-01-25T08:00:27.000Z
creator: Kev Lochun
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: Historian Jess Venner explains how the ancient Roman city was ‘lost’ – and found again centuries later
encoded: The buried Roman city of Pompeii was ‘discovered’ in the 16th century, but was it ever lost? In this penultimate episode of our four-part series, Kev Lochun speaks with historian Dr Jess Venner about the years between destruction and excavation. How did the beleaguered Roman emperor Titus react to the disaster and the refugee crisis that followed? Why was no attempt made to resettle and rebuild? And how did the city become the archeological marvel we know it as today? Want to know more about the story of Pompeii? HistoryExtra's Kev Lochun has curated a selection of essential reading from the HistoryExtra archives to help you explore the story of the cataclysm, the Roman way of life and the nature of the Roman empire. Go beyond the podcast.

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Long before the ancient Roman empire, a rival superpower looked set for supremacy
type: item
date: 2026-01-24T11:15:13.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Before the Punic Wars, as Rome and Carthage edged towards conflict in the third century BC, the balance of power in the Mediterranean favoured the Carthaginians. But it was the upstart Romans who would be victorious
encoded: The ancient Romans would come to build one of the world’s mightiest empires, spanning continents and moulding the trajectory of much of Europe and the spaces around it. But that wasn’t an outcome that always seemed likely. In the years before the start of the Punic Wars, which would eventually see the Romans emerge as the Mediterranean’s dominant force, it was a different power that seemed to hold the keys to the future: Carthage. “In the middle of the third century BC, when the Punic Wars began, if you were going to take a bet on who was going to control the Mediterranean, you probably would not have bet on Rome.” That’s the view of Professor Philip Freeman, stressing that the world Rome was emerging into was already crowded with established powers. How, then, did it take advantage of the situation? Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Freeman set out the rivalry between Carthage and Rome and revealed how Rome’s imperial ambitions meant the Punic Wars were inevitable. Ancient Carthage before Rome “Carthage has a fascinating history,” explains Freeman. “It was one of many different colonies that were founded by the Phoenicians, starting in about the year 1000 BC.” The Phoenicians were expert sailors and merchants, and one of the earliest European powers. Rather than conquering large inland territories, they established a network of coastal settlements specifically designed to facilitate trade and spur commercial opportunities. Read more | The overshadowed ancient empire that rivalled Rome with maritime might and an iron fist As Freeman emphasises, “they were not an empire in the sense of the Romans, or other empires. What they wanted to do was found trading posts.” Over time, that strategy would go on to produce extraordinary wealth. Phoenician settlements spread along the north African coast, across southern Spain, and even beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. Their great cities included Rhodes, Leptis Magna, Tyre and Sidon. But it was Carthage that eclipsed its peers,…

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