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Real Roman History

Real Roman History

By: Hugo Prudentius
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Real Roman History is a comprehensive, chronological account of Rome from its origins to its end—told with the depth the subject deserves. This is not a highlight reel. Every major figure, every turning point, and every war gets the full treatment: the stories as the Romans told them, the ancient sources and what they got right and wrong, and the historical arguments that scholars are still having today. Hugo Prudentius takes listeners from the kings of the early city through the Republic, the civil wars, the empire, and beyond—episode by episode, in sequence, without skipping the parts that made Rome what it was. If other Roman history podcasts have left you wanting more, you've found the right one.

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Episodes
  • Episode 60. Augustus, Part Four: Teutoburg, Tiberius, and the Question of Legacy

    Episode 60. Augustus, Part Four: Teutoburg, Tiberius, and the Question of Legacy
    Jun 20 2026
    Works CitedPrimary Sources
    • Cassius Dio. Roman History, Books 55–56. The narrative backbone for the decade.
    • Ovid. Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. The exile poetry, especially Tristia 2.
    • Res Gestae Divi Augusti. The thirty-five-section self-account, read at the funeral and inscribed on the Mausoleum tablets and at Ancyra.
    • Suetonius. Life of Augustus, chapters 22–25, 65, 97–101. The death scene, the Teutoburg reaction, and the late exiles.
    • Suetonius. Life of Tiberius, chapters 15–21. The adoption, the Pannonian command, and the final years with Augustus.
    • Tacitus. Annals, Book 1, chapters 1–10 and 53. Retrospective account of the death, the succession, and the exiles.
    • Velleius Paterculus. Roman History, 2.103–124. Contemporary eyewitness for the Pannonian revolt and for Teutoburg's aftermath.
    Secondary Sources
    • Barrett, Anthony. Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome. Yale University Press, 2002. Essential for the final years and for the succession politics around Tiberius and Postumus.
    • Galinsky, Karl, editor. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Essential collected essays on the reign as a whole, especially the chapters on the Res Gestae and the succession.
    • Goldsworthy, Adrian. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2014. The best general biography for the final decade.
    • Levick, Barbara. Tiberius the Politician. Revised edition, Routledge, 1999. Essential on the adoption of 4 CE and on Tiberius's role in the German and Pannonian commands.
    • Wells, Peter S. The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest. W. W. Norton, 2003. The best popular account of Teutoburg for the archaeological context at Kalkriese.
    • White, Peter. “Ovid and the Augustan Milieu,” in Brill's Companion to Ovid (ed. Barbara Weiden Boyd). Brill, 2002. The best recent treatment of the exile and the likely political context of the carmen et error.


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    47 mins
  • Episode 59. Augustus, Part Three: The Succession Unmade

    Episode 59. Augustus, Part Three: The Succession Unmade
    Jun 20 2026
    Works CitedPrimary Sources
    • Cassius Dio. Roman History, Books 54–55. The narrative backbone for this episode. Dio covers Agrippa's death in the closing sections of Book 54, and the main subsequent events in Book 55. He is working two centuries after the events from sources he does not name.
    • Cenotaphia Pisana (CIL XI 1420–1421). The inscribed decrees from the town of Pisa voting public mourning for Lucius in 2 CE and for Gaius in 4 CE. Primary epigraphic evidence for how the deaths were received in provincial Italy.
    • Macrobius. Saturnalia, Book 2. Preserving earlier collected anecdotes of Julia's wit. The late date (early fifth century CE) counsels caution, but the material has the texture of authentic first-century traditions.
    • P. Colon. inv. 4701. The papyrus fragment of Augustus's funeral oration for Agrippa, preserved from Egypt and now held in the University of Cologne. One of the few documents in the Augustan corpus allowing us to hear the emperor in his own words.
    • Pliny the Elder. Natural History, 7.149. Catalogues the private disasters that marred Augustus's public fortune, including Julia's conduct and the deaths of Gaius and Lucius.
    • Res Gestae Divi Augusti, section 14. Augustus's own brief account of the adoption of Gaius and Lucius and the offices he arranged for them, written after both were dead.
    • Seneca the Younger. De Beneficiis, 6.32. The fullest ancient meditation on the Julia case and what it revealed about the nature of imperial power exercised within the family.
    • Suetonius. Life of Augustus, chapters 63–65. On Julia, the marriages, and the crisis of 2 BCE. The detail that Augustus wept composing the letter to the Senate and refused visitors for days afterward is chapter 65.
    • Suetonius. Life of Tiberius, chapters 7–15. The central character source for Tiberius in this period. The Vipsania-in-the-street passage is chapter 7. The Rhodes withdrawal and the years on the island are chapters 10–13.
    • Tacitus. Annals, Book 1. Retrospective from the Tiberian reign, essential for political analysis but coloured by what Tiberius became as emperor.
    • Velleius Paterculus. Roman History, Book 2, chapters 96–102. The most important contemporary witness. Velleius served under Tiberius in Germany and under Gaius Caesar in Armenia. He is an eyewitness for the Artagira incident in 3 CE.
    Secondary Sources
    • Barrett, Anthony. Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome. Yale University Press, 2002. Essential for the domestic politics and the role Livia played in the Tiberius negotiations.
    • Fantham, Elaine. Julia Augusti: The Emperor's Daughter. Routledge, 2006. The fullest modern treatment of Julia, invaluable for reading against the hostile ancient tradition.
    • Goldsworthy, Adrian. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2014. The best general biography, with a good narrative of the 2 BCE crisis.
    • Levick, Barbara. Tiberius the Politician. Revised edition, Routledge, 1999. The standard modern treatment, with a careful reconstruction of the Rhodes period and the reasons for the withdrawal.
    • Syme, Ronald. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford University Press, 1986. Essential for the prosopographical reconstruction of the senatorial class and the Julia conspiracy reading.
    • Syme, Ronald. The Roman Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1939. Foundational on the dynastic politics and the political interpretation of the 2 BCE crisis.


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    53 mins
  • Episode 58. Augustus, Part Two: The Succession He Could Not Arrange

    Episode 58. Augustus, Part Two: The Succession He Could Not Arrange
    Jun 20 2026
    Works CitedPrimary Sources
    • Acta Ludorum Saecularium (CIL VI 32323). The inscribed contemporary record of the Secular Games, recovered in 1890 from the banks of the Tiber.
    • Cassius Dio. Roman History, Book 54. The narrative spine for 23 to 17 BCE, including the moral legislation and the equestrian reaction in the Forum.
    • Donatus. Life of Virgil. The Octavia scene and the account of Virgil's death and the deathbed request to destroy the Aeneid.
    • Horace. Carmen Saeculare. The Secular Hymn, performed June 3, 17 BCE. Note the prayer for marriage and childbirth that directly references the Lex Julia.
    • Horace. Odes, Book 4. The retrospective on the Parthian settlement.
    • Macrobius. Saturnalia, Book 2. The Julia anecdotes, preserved from earlier sources.
    • Propertius. Elegies, Book 3. Contemporary elegy on Marcellus.
    • Res Gestae Divi Augusti, sections 6, 8, 14, 19–21, 29. Augustus's own account of the laws, the building programme, and the family arrangements.
    • Seneca the Younger. Ad Marciam de Consolatione. The fullest ancient account of Octavia's grief.
    • Suetonius. Life of Augustus, chapters 21, 29–30, 34, 63–64. The moral legislation (chapter 34), the literary circle, and the family arrangements.
    • Tacitus. Annals, Books 1 and 3. Retrospective on the succession and on the moral legislation. The analysis of the Julian laws in Book 3, chapters 25–28, is the sharpest ancient critique of the legislation.
    • Virgil. Aeneid, Book 6, lines 860–886. The Marcellus passage, in the descent to the underworld.
    Secondary Sources
    • Fantham, Elaine. Julia Augusti: The Emperor's Daughter. Routledge, 2006.
    • Galinsky, Karl. Augustan Culture. Princeton University Press, 1996. Essential on the moral legislation and its relationship to the literary programme.
    • Goldsworthy, Adrian. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2014.
    • McGinn, Thomas. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press, 1998. On the Lex Julia de Adulteriis and its enforcement.
    • Syme, Ronald. The Roman Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1939.
    • Treggiari, Susan. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford University Press, 1991. The standard reference on Roman marriage law and the Augustan legislation.


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    Show More Show Less
    53 mins
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