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: What have the Etruscans ever done for us?
items: One of ancient Rome’s most notorious emperors murdered his own mother, and there's a dark reason why
items: Caesar's funeral drama: anger and revenge after death
items: Are you healthier than a Roman? These ancient secrets for longevity are still shockingly relevant
items: Rome's worst nightmare: the story of Spartacus
items: The shockingly simple question historian Tom Holland would ask Julius Caesar
items: Monsters of Rome: do emperors such as Nero and Caligula deserve their reputations?
items: How Roman roads transformed Europe

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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What have the Etruscans ever done for us?
type: item
date: 2025-09-10T08:00:55.000Z
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
description: The wealthy civilisation that dominated the Italian peninsula before the Romans left a legacy that’s full of surprises. Lucy Shipley explains why we have the Etruscans to thank for the way we write, the shape of our towns, Renaissance art – and even horror movies
encoded: They taught us to read and write (well, kind of) Long before the Romans came to dominate the ancient world – before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Claudius invaded Britain and Vesuvius buried Pompeii – another civilisation dominated the Italian peninsula: the Etruscans. You may have heard of them, or that name may mean nothing to you. Either way, there’s little doubting their influence, continuing through the long hegemony of the Romans (who occupied Etruscan settlements) and the medieval period all the way to the modern age. The Etruscans, whose name is echoed in the modern region of Tuscany, emerged in central Italy around 900 BC. Their heartland, Etruria, lay between the rivers Tiber and Arno, and their cities were often perched on imposing plateaus with views across the fertile fields and metal-bearing soils that made their fortune. Their ports sent vessels out into the Tyrrhenian Sea (which bears their Greek name), trading as far afield as Spain and the near east. If you know the Etruscans at all, you might identify them as the villains of many a Roman tale or Greek myth. But who were these people? How did they live? And what impact do they have on our lives today? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-webready150617775-378ec5d.jpg" width="3602" height="2401" alt="A pale green and cream tablet with white letters inscribed across the top" title="An ivory writing tablet discovered in Marsiliana d'Albegna. The characters of the Etruscan alphabet inscribed along the top clearly influenced modern Latin letters (Image by Getty Images)" /> Well, a good place to start is with the words you’re reading on this page. Without the Etruscan alphabet, the Latin characters we use in modern English writing could have developed totally differently. Etruscan letters are clearly influenced by Greek and Phoenician scripts, but you’ll find you can read them with relative ease because the letter forms are so familiar. Read more | The hi…

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One of ancient Rome’s most notorious emperors murdered his own mother, and there's a dark reason why
type: item
date: 2025-07-24T13:38:31.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Historian Tom Holland uncovers how politics, myth and maternal ambition collided in the scandalous reign of the Roman emperor Nero
encoded: Few Roman emperors are as synonymous with scandal as Nero. From stories of arson and artistic vanity to theatrical cruelty and imperial excess, his name has long conjured images of a decadent tyrant – the archetype of Roman madness and badness. But was Nero truly deranged? Or was there a brutal, even calculated, logic to his most shocking acts? Nero’s villainy was a “deliberate political strategy” says historian Tom Holland, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. According to Holland, even Nero’s infamous crimes as leader of the Roman Empire – including the murder of his own mother – were calculated acts of political theatre, designed to project a new, populist vision of imperial power. A mother’s ambition and a son’s ascendancy To understand Nero, you also have to understand his mother. Agrippina the Younger was born into the ruling Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the great-granddaughter of Augustus and the sister of the erratic emperor Caligula. Her third marriage – to her uncle, the emperor Claudius – scandalised ancient Roman society, but it was ruthlessly strategic. Once married to Claudius, Agrippina ensured that her son Nero was adopted as heir, pushing aside Claudius’s biological son, Britannicus. Read more | 6 women who changed the course of Roman history When Claudius died suddenly in AD 54 (possibly even poisoned by Agrippina herself) Nero was just 16 years old. His mother moved quickly, orchestrating a smooth transition and assuming the role of regent. For a brief period, coins and imperial artwork depicted mother and son as ruling partners, their profiles facing each other in a rare display of maternal power. Agrippina’s public prominence was extraordinary and deeply unsettled Rome’s male elite. She donned imperial colours, appeared in state ceremonies and walked alongside her son in public. But as Nero aged and sought independence, the partnership began to fracture. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages…

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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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Are you healthier than a Roman? These ancient secrets for longevity are still shockingly relevant
type: item
date: 2025-07-01T17:17:14.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: From seasonal intimacy schedules to open-air nudity, ancient Greco-Roman thinkers had no shortage of theories on how to stay healthy. Some might still feel surprisingly useful today
encoded: Think of the Roman empire or ancient Greece, and your first thoughts might be of political scheming, cultural innovation and incredibly violent warfare, rather than the world of wellness. But even in the ancient world, questions on how to preserve good health commanded the attention of the era’s deepest thinkers. Among the Greeks and Romans, physicians like Hippocrates, Galen and Diocles were fixated on health, how to build it and how to maintain it. They viewed good health as a constantly shifting balance between internal forces and external conditions: food, temperature, movement and even your clothing choices (or lack thereof) played a part. And the wrong choice – at the wrong time of year – could tip that balance in a very unwelcome direction. Read more | What did people eat in Ancient Rome? Professor Claire Bubb, an expert in ancient science and literature, joined the HistoryExtra podcast to explain some of the measures that Greco-Roman doctors advised for a healthy life. Here, we share five tips for maximising your health and longevity, from those ancient Greeks and Romans, as told by Professor Bubb. Tailor your health to your goals, not someone else’s Even before the rise of modern wellness programmes, ancient doctors were pushing personalisation. A healthy regime wasn’t a fixed rulebook. It was a flexible set of principles, adjusted to suit your specific body, lifestyle and ambitions. Want to build strength? There was a plan for that. Want to slim down? A completely different routine applied. “The Hippocratic approach here is very individualised,” explains Bubb, “and this to me is the thing that ancient medicine can still really help us think through and help us be more aware of.” “If you, as an individual, feel that you are overweight and you want to lose weight, you're going to do one thing. If you're underweight and you really want to bulk up and you'd rather be stronger and you want more mass, you have to do these other things, so everyone has their own …

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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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The shockingly simple question historian Tom Holland would ask Julius Caesar
type: item
date: 2025-03-27T15:00:07.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Given the chance to interrogate one of history’s most famous figures, what would you ask? Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, British historian and The Rest is History podcast host Tom Holland gave an unexpected answer
encoded: Few figures in history have been as mythologised as Julius Caesar. The Roman general and dictator, assassinated in 44 BC, has inspired centuries of debate about his political ambitions, military genius, human flaws, and the nature of his downfall on the famous Ides of March. Widely regarded as a brilliant military strategist, Caesar greatly expanded the Roman Empire – pushing its borders beyond the Mediterranean, conquering Gaul, and even launching an invasion of Britain. However, if historian and podcaster Tom Holland had the opportunity to ask Caesar one question, he wouldn’t opt for a deep dive into military tactics or philosophy. Instead, he’d keep it simple: “Were you surprised to be assassinated?” Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Holland explained why the answer to this question, more than any other that Caesar might give, could reveal an extraordinary insight into the statesman’s mindset in the final moments of his life. Did Caesar see his murder coming? The assassination of Julius Caesar by a group of senators – including his friend and ally Brutus – is one of the most famous betrayals in history. But was Caesar expecting it? As Holland explains, the available historical accounts – particularly from the ancient biographer Suetonius, who was writing in the early Imperial era – paint an ambiguous picture. On one hand, Caesar would have had multiple warnings: ominous prophecies, political tensions, and even direct advice from those close to him. But on the other hand, Caesar seemed to carry himself with a sense of invincibility and arrogance, says Holland – something perpetuated by subsequent portrayals of him by the likes of William Shakespeare. Read more | Tom Holland on the monsters of Rome Either way, Holland believes that the answer to his question would speak volumes about the depth of Caesar’s character beyond what his reputation from history tells us. As for the answer Holland thinks he’d receive, he estimates that Caesar wouldn’t have been able to…

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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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How Roman roads transformed Europe
type: item
date: 2025-01-09T07:00:56.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: Catherine Fletcher explores how ancient Rome's road network transformed a continent – and inspired leaders for centuries to come
encoded: They spanned a continent, offered a conduit for soldiers and pilgrims alike – and may not have been as straight as legend suggests. Roman roads played a formative role in Europe's development for centuries, and have inspired its leaders right up to the present day. Catherine Fletcher, author of The Roads to Rome tells Matt Elton more about the long-lasting influence of these ancient highways. Catherine Fletcher is the author of The Roads To Rome: A History (The Bodley Head, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon Hear Catherine Fletcher discuss the history of Florence, and offer her tips on Renaissance sites to visit in the city here.

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