HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-12-03T09:01:06.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Julius Caesar's hellraising youth: did he really defy tyrants and crucify pirates?
items: Think you know everything about ancient Rome? These 25 facts will prove otherwise
items: The making of Rome's monster
items: Alice Roberts: “Christianity didn’t invent itself as an empire from nothing: it adapted existing Roman structures”
items: Caesar's funeral drama: anger and revenge after death
items: Rome's worst nightmare: the story of Spartacus
items: Monsters of Rome: do emperors such as Nero and Caligula deserve their reputations?
items: Why should we beware the Ides of March?
items: Gladiator III: what could happen in a new sequel, according to Roman history
items: The real Macrinus: how Gladiator II’s power broker became a short-lived Roman emperor

Julius Caesar's hellraising youth: did he really defy tyrants and crucify pirates?
type: item
date: 2025-12-03T09:00:43.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Historical people
subject: Roman rulers
description: Ancient accounts of Julius Caesar’s early life depict an all-action hero who outwitted tyrants and terrorised bandits. But can they be trusted? David S Potter investigates
encoded: The most celebrated of all ancient Romans almost met a watery end before he’d made his big splash in the vast ocean of history. In 75 BC, Julius Caesar – then in his mid-20s and yet to establish himself as the most powerful man in Rome – sailed to Rhodes to study with a famous Greek rhetorician. But on his journey east, he was kidnapped by Cilician pirates from southern Anatolia. There was nothing so unusual about this stroke of misfortune – the waters of the eastern Mediterranean were plagued by bandits all too willing to prey on Roman travellers. But there was certainly something unusual about what happened next. Seemingly oblivious to the danger in which he now found himself, Caesar decisively took control of the situation. According to his biographer, Plutarch, “when the pirates demanded 20 talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not knowing who their captive was, and of his own accord agreed to give them 50”. While his agents set out to raise the ransom money, Caesar made the pirates listen to his speeches and poetry, assuring them that he would come after them as soon as he was freed. He was as good as his word. Having paid the ransom, Caesar raised a fleet from the cities of the Roman province of Asia (western Anatolia) and captured the pirates. Then, when he discovered that the corrupt governor of Asia was looking to make a profit from the captives, he “took the robbers out of prison and crucified them all, just as he had often warned them on the island that he would do, when they thought he was joking”. It was a brutal act of revenge – softened only slightly by the fact that he slit the pirates’ throats to spare them the agony that would have been their fate on the crosses. Origin stories Caesar’s pirate-slaying escapades represent a truly extraordinary tale. But what are we to make of it? We know a great deal about Julius Caesar in the ‘colossus’ phase of his career – that period stretching from his mid-thirties to his assassination in his mid-fifti…

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Think you know everything about ancient Rome? These 25 facts will prove otherwise
type: item
date: 2025-11-28T13:02:32.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Death
subject: Gladiators
subject: Life in ancient Rome
subject: Roman rulers
description: Edward J Watts, author of The Romans: A 2,000-Year History, shares 25 things you need to know about one of the greatest civilisations of the ancient world – from their incredible feats of engineering to their sporting spectacles
encoded: 1. The Romans lived in an independent state for more than 2,200 years According to tradition, Rome was founded in 753 BC, shortly after the beginning of the Italian Iron Age. Its inhabitants were Latin-speaking pagans who lived along the river Tiber in what is now central Italy. The empire of Trebizond, the last independent Roman kingdom descended from that state, was captured in 1461 by an Ottoman army equipped with gunpowder weapons. The people living in Trebizond also called themselves ‘Roman’, but they were Christians who lived in a city on the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey and spoke a language they called Romeika (which translates as 'Roman', but which we now call Greek). 2. The Roman empire once included all, or part of, nearly 50 countries At the empire’s greatest extent in AD 117, Roman territory stretched from what is now the Atlantic coast of Portugal to the Persian Gulf beaches in Kuwait, from southern Egypt near the current Sudanese border to northern England, and from just south of Casablanca in Morocco to the Caspian Sea shores of Azerbaijan. The land area of the Roman empire was smaller than Australia, but if one included the territorial waters controlled by Rome (as is customary with modern states) the empire would rank as the fifth-largest country on earth if it existed today. 3. As much as one-third of the world’s population lived under Roman control Late during the reign of the emperor Trajan (ruled AD 98–117), it is thought that the Roman empire reached a population of 80 million, out of a total world population of around 230 million. In modern terms, Rome’s share of the world population at that moment would be nearly equivalent to a country with the combined populations of India and China. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/2GettyImages-1369193411-fa1bfb0-e1764241964618.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A yellow, blue and red map showing the Roman empire" title="The Roman empire reached its maximum…

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The making of Rome's monster
type: item
date: 2025-10-08T08:00:55.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Historical events
subject: Roman rulers
description: In the second century BC, Roman troops razed the city of Carthage and obliterated its civilisation. So why, asks Eve MacDonald, did the victors remain obsessed by their conquered foes for the next 200 years?
encoded: Carthage burned for six days. After three long years of siege, in the spring of 146 BC Roman soldiers finally broke through the city’s defences and began to slaughter the population. But still the Carthaginians resisted. Street by street, they threw themselves at their enemy. Rome’s relentless military machine moved from the city’s ports, across the temple-filled marketplace and up the streets that lined the central hill. There they were assailed by projectiles hurled down from roofs by women, children and old men. Yet the Romans’ fierce assault on that already ancient city on the north African coast could not be stopped. They went from house to house, ascending to roofs, rooting out Carthaginians from their hiding places. Houses burned and bodies lined the streets while a unit of ‘sweeper’ soldiers cleared away the dead to allow access for more troops. The scene, as told by the Greek historian Appian – in what, it seems, was an eyewitness account – paints a gruesome picture of conquest in the ancient world. It was so brutal, in fact, that the Roman commander, Scipio Aemelianus, had to change his troops frequently, sending in fresh fighters to combat the Carthaginians’ desperate attempts to defend their land, their houses, their families, their gods and their very lives. Those attempts at defence came to nought. The people of Carthage were slaughtered or enslaved, their once-beautiful city left in smouldering ruins on the shores of the Mediterranean. As a result of the destruction, and of the memory of the wars fought between these two ancient superpowers, Carthage became an integral part of the story of Rome and its rise to empire. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/shutterstockeditorial14491209jWeb-Ready-b90d516.jpg" width="5824" height="3883" alt="A photograph of a ruin. The foreground is a large, ragged stone arch, and beyond it, there are some white columns coming out of various size of rocks" title="A century after des…

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Alice Roberts: “Christianity didn’t invent itself as an empire from nothing: it adapted existing Roman structures”
type: item
date: 2025-09-15T08:00:29.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Burial
subject: Roman rulers
description: Alice Roberts speaks to Danny Bird about the evolution of the new religion that swept across the Roman empire and beyond
encoded: Danny Bird: What made you decide to write about the collapse of the western Roman empire and the rise of Christianity? Alice Roberts: I’ve long been fascinated by this historical period, especially in Britain, where written records are scarce. This book grew from my interest in burial archaeology, shaped by excavations I took part in 20 years ago on a Welsh cliff. Bones were eroding from the cliff face, and we uncovered cist graves – stone-lined, coffin-like structures – some dating from as early as the fifth century. One grave even had a stone lid carved with a simple cross. These early Christian burials sparked my curiosity. More recently, I visited an excavation at Llantwit Major, where archaeologists are investigating what may be Britain’s earliest monastery, possibly dating to the fifth century. This raised further questions: why was Christianity spreading so early? And who was behind it? Rather than relying on broad generalisations, my book focuses on individuals: the people who carried Christianity across regions, and their motives. A story that began with burials in Wales led me across the Roman world from Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) to Alexandria, aiming to find out how Christianity spread so widely, and what that reveals about the fall of the western Roman empire. Christianity presents itself as a faith for the powerless, but your book suggests that it was adopted by urban elites in its early centuries. How does this challenge the mythology surrounding its origins? It stands in stark contrast, really. It’s a tricky point, because those writing about Christianity were necessarily literate members of the elite. So, from the outset, we’re seeing a movement that appears to have spread among relatively well-off individuals. By the fourth century, it had clearly reached the highest echelons of Roman society. Emperor Constantine had begun to take notice, convening a council of bishops in AD 325. But even in the earliest years, this was a movement involving…

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Caesar's funeral drama: anger and revenge after death
type: item
date: 2025-07-10T08:00:53.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Death
subject: Roman rulers
description: The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC drove tensions sky-high in ancient Rome. As Jessica Clarke reveals, plays staged at his funeral were carefully chosen to inflame anger and incite revenge on his killers
encoded: On 20 March 44 BC, a violent death in Rome was about to send assembled masses into uproar – sparking pandemonium that threatened to engulf the city. The incident described by the ancient biographer Suetonius wasn’t a real murder but, rather, the climax of a theatre show. If we reconstruct the performance, using both Suetonius’s writing and fragments of the scripts that survive from the time, we can picture the leading actor standing in the centre of the stage before a packed auditorium. He would have raised his sword over his head and declaimed boldly, his voice ringing out across the stands: “What, did I save these men so that they might murder me?” With these words, he would have plunged the blade into his chest. Falling forward onto the stage, he would then ‘die’ slowly and dramatically in front of his enthralled audience. Cries of sorrow broke out from the audience, Suetonius tells us, and shouts of indignation were raised against the characters who had instigated his suicide. Like so many other theatre shows at the time, which are recorded for us by the ancient writer, orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero, this performance – staged in the last years of the collapsing Roman Republic – caused a volcanic reaction among the crowd. The performance was part of the funeral of Gaius Julius Caesar. Five days earlier, the Roman general and dictator had been stabbed to death at a senate meeting by a group of conspirators. The city had gone into mourning, and a huge celebration had been organised to commemorate Caesar’s military and political achievements. It would include the usual eulogy and burning of the funeral pyre – but the centrepiece of the event would comprise two magnificent theatre shows. Incendiary shows First came the Contest for the Arms of Achilles, set during the legendary Trojan War. In it, Greek heroes Ajax and Odysseus argue over who should keep the sword and shield of their deceased comrade. Odysseus wins the debate and is proclaimed the victor.…

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Rome's worst nightmare: the story of Spartacus
type: item
date: 2025-06-05T08:00:30.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Gladiators
subject: Roman rulers
description: When the Spartacus revolt erupted in 73 BC, it exposed a terrifying truth: that the cocksure Roman Republic was nowhere near as invincible as it liked to believe. Guy de la Bédoyère takes up the story
encoded: It’s a measure of the enduring appeal of Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 swords-and-sandals epic that, when most of us hear the name Spartacus, a dimple-chinned Kirk Douglas springs immediately to mind. Heroic. Noble. Doomed. Roman citizens, it’s safe to say, saw Spartacus rather differently – as a rebellious slave who threatened the future of the Roman Republic. Violent. Disobedient. Dangerous. Though writing in the imperial Roman era long after the defeat of Spartacus, the words of the author Plutarch (AD 46–c120) capture something of the dread the warrior inspired. “It is said that, when he was first brought to Rome to be sold, a serpent was seen coiled about his face as he slept,” noted Plutarch, “and his wife, who was of the same tribe as Spartacus, a prophetess, and subject to visitations of the Dionysiac frenzy, declared it the sign of a great and formidable power which would end in misfortune.” So what’s the truth behind these very different legends? Why did Spartacus take up arms outside the gladiatorial arena? And why was the uprising he led – the third of the so-called Servile Wars, following rebellions in 135–132 BC and 104–c100 BC – perceived as being so threatening to Rome? Brutal degradations To answer these questions, it first helps to remember just how reliant upon slaves Rome had become by 73 BC, when the renegade band of trainee gladiators led by Spartacus burst out of their barracks in southern Italy. Their rebellion exposed the terrifying truth: that every city, every village and every villa estate was at risk from the slaves on whom every aspect of Roman life depended. Paradoxically, this reliance on slave labour had grown from Rome’s success. Having seen off the naval trading power of Carthage in three Punic Wars (264–241 BC, 218–201 BC and 149–146 BC), and having seized Greece in 146 BC, Rome had vastly increased its reach and territory. The Romans had also defeated Macedon and, in 133 BC, been granted the kingdom of Attalus III of Pergamon (spanning …

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Monsters of Rome: do emperors such as Nero and Caligula deserve their reputations?
type: item
date: 2025-03-26T11:00:02.000Z
creator: Rob Attar
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Roman rulers
description: Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars, a key source for the early Roman emperors, has just been translated anew by historian Tom Holland. He reveals what insights it yields into these titans of ancient history
encoded: Rob Attar: Could you please begin by introducing Suetonius and his best-known work, The Lives of the Caesars? Tom Holland: Suetonius is probably the most famous of all the ancient biographers. He was secretary to the emperor Hadrian, so was right at the heart of imperial power. He’d also worked as an archivist and librarian in the imperial palace, and therefore had access to all kinds of historical documents. He drew on these to write [in around AD 121] the biographies of the rulers who had come to be known as the 12 Caesars: the 11 emperors from Augustus to Domitian and, before them all, Julius Caesar – the adoptive father of Augustus. The Lives has had a massive influence on how people understand the Roman empire. Read more | Everything you wanted to know about the Roman emperors Of all ancient classical texts, this is probably also the most influential on modern culture. It inspired Robert Graves, who would later translate the Lives for Penguin Classics, to write I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1935), which were then adapted into the celebrated 1976 BBC drama series [starring Derek Jacobi]. And that series inspired all kinds of US dramas, ranging from Dynasty in the 1980s, to The Sopranos in the nineties and noughties, and Game of Thrones in the 2010s. You could say that Suetonius is the godfather of the murderous dynastic drama. As a historian yourself, do you consider that Suetonius was doing something similar to what you do today? It’s important to say that Suetonius wasn’t actually a historian – he was a biographer. He was not aiming to do what Tacitus, his great contemporary, was doing – creating a record of the whole sweep of Roman history. But of course, because the emperors are so important to our understanding of how the Roman world operated, his work does offer a sense of the Roman empire in the first century BC and the first century AD. That was a period of convulsive change: the Republic collapsed, Augustus established an autocracy, and then …

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Why should we beware the Ides of March?
type: item
date: 2025-03-14T11:03:00.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Roman rulers
description: The 15th of March – known as the Ides of March – was just another day in the Roman calendar. In 44 BC however, the date took on a sinister new meaning...
encoded: In 44 BC, the Ides of March took on a new meaning. Julius Caesar, who had seized power from the Roman Republic and made himself a dictator, was murdered by a group of 60 dagger-wielding Senators led by his friends, Brutus and Cassius. What does the 'Ides of March' mean? The term ‘Ides’ had a perfectly practical – and in no way sinister – meaning to the Romans. Their calendar, in connection with the phases of the Moon, used three terms to mark the passage of a month. A ‘Kalend’ was the first day of the month; a ‘None’ signified the first quarter of the Moon (the fifth or seventh day) and an ‘Ide’ was the full Moon (the 13th or 15th day). Therefore the Ides of March simply meant: 15 March. On this day in history | More events that happened on 15 March Why should we beware the Ides of March? Caesar had known that many wished him dead and a soothsayer allegedly warned him that harm would come to him before the Ides of March. On 15 March, Caesar reportedly passed the soothsayer joking, “The Ides of March have come,” but was met with the ominous reply, “Aye, Caesar, but not gone.” This moment has been immortalised by William Shakespeare in his play, Julius Caesar, first performed in 1599. It is from Shakespeare that we have the famous warning given by the soothsayer: “Beware the Ides of March.” Caesar’s murder failed to bring back the Republic, but triggered the start of the Roman empire under his adopted heir, Octavian (known as Augustus). Before the assassination, the Ides of March was best known as a festival. The popular time for feasting and drinking marked the festival of Roman deity Anna Perenna. It was also traditionally the time to settle debts – Julius Caesar certainly paid his. Read next | What if Julius Caesar hadn't been assassinated? This Q&A was taken from a 2014 issue of BBC History Revealed

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Gladiator III: what could happen in a new sequel, according to Roman history
type: item
date: 2024-12-11T18:38:28.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Roman rulers
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Whether there’ll be another sequel or not, here’s what could happen next in the story of a potential Gladiator III, according to Roman history
encoded: With its blend of real figures and fictionalised events from the history of the Roman empire, Gladiator II explores the struggles of Lucius (in the films, the son of Lucilla and Maximus Decimus Meridius, though in history a chimera of at least two people) and his ascent from tragedy to greatness. But, as Gladiator III could demonstrate, this fictional Lucius has inherited an empire on the cusp of profound challenges. How Gladiator II’s ending sets the stage for Gladiator III While Gladiator II’s historical accuracy veers toward the realm of fantasy (mutant baboons and sharks in the Colosseum, anyone?) the movie is rooted in the real historical context of ancient Rome in the 3rd century AD. So how does it pave the way for Gladiator III? By the end of Gladiator II, the Roman emperors Caracalla and Geta are both dead, Geta through the machinations of the Machiavellian Macrinus and Caracalla directly by his hand. For a very brief period, Macrinus succeeds them, before he himself is killed by Lucius – leaving Lucilla and Maximus’s son with the reins of power. Read more | The worst Roman emperors Gladiator III: here’s what really happens after Macrinus dies, according to history In real history, Macrinus rises to power following the death of Caracalla (which he is implicated in, he does not do the deed himself) and reigns as emperor for just over a year before being overthrown not by Lucius, but by Elagabalus. The historical Caracalla was a violent and unpredictable emperor; he had his brother and co-emperor Geta assassinated in AD 211 so that he could govern alone. In AD 216, he began a short-lived war against the Parthian empire, coming to a sticky end in AD 217 when he was assassinated by one of his own soldiers – possibly at the behest of Macrinus, who then succeeded him. Read more | The Roman punishment of decimation Macrinus focused his attention as emperor on bringing stability back to the Roman empire by attempting to conclude the several wars it was waging, as we…

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The real Macrinus: how Gladiator II’s power broker became a short-lived Roman emperor
type: item
date: 2024-11-15T16:45:34.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Roman rulers
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Rather than a trainer of gladiators, in real history Macrinus is remembered as the first emperor not to be from the aristocratic or senatorial classes. But, as Jonny Wilkes explores, he did not last long enough to make much more of a mark
encoded: Gladiator II is director Ridley Scott’s blood-soaked return to ancient Rome, 24 years after movie-goers first saw former general-turned-gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius challenge the emperor Commodus. Alongside the returning Lucilla, this new instalment introduces a new cast of characters out for their own interests – and perhaps the most mysterious of these is Denzel Washington’s gladiator-trainer Macrinus. Was Macrinus real? Yes, but he has absolutely nothing to do with gladiators. The real Macrinus was a political player who rose up from the relatively low ranks of the equestrian class, and *possible spoiler alert for the film* later became a short-lived Roman emperor. In Gladiator II’s fictionalised version of the Severan Dynasty, Macrinus is an arms dealer, owner of a gladiator stable, and a cunning political mover with his eyes on more power. The real Macrinus was not a behind-the-scenes businessman using gladiators, as said in the movie, as his “instrument”. In reality, he held a position high up in the emperor’s circle. He managed all civil affairs in Rome, before taking an opportunity to grasp the imperial throne after the death of Caracalla. Macrinus’s early life – did he know Marcus Aurelius? There is no evidence that Macrinus had any dealings with emperor Marcus Aurelius – much less that Aurelius kept him as a slave, as Gladiator II suggests. Marcus Opellius Macrinus was born in c164 AD in Mauretania Caesariensis, a Roman province in modern-day Algeria. He was of Berber ancestry, and the historian and senator Cassius Dio described him as “Moor by birth”. Little is known about his early life. Growing up in an equestrian family (which was the name for the social order below the senatorial class), he must have received a good education as he trained as a lawyer and moved to Rome, where he prospered. Dio put this down not to his knowledge of the law and precedent, but “his observance of them was faithful”. What is Macrinus’s relationship with Caracalla and…

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