34 episodes
The Fall of Rome Podcast Wondery
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- History
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4.9 • 110 Ratings
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Barbarians, political breakdown, economic collapse, mass migration, pillaging and plunder. The fall of the Roman Empire has been studied for years, but genetics, climate science, forensic science, network models, and globalization studies have reshaped our understanding of one of the most important events in human history. PhD historian and specialist Patrick Wyman brings the cutting edge of history to listeners in plain, relatable English.
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Introduction
Barbarians, political breakdown, economic collapse, mass migration, pillaging and plunder. In the introduction to this series, PhD historian Patrick Wyman takes you through the broad outlines of the fall of the Roman Empire, one of the most important events in history.
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The Barbarian World
We explore the barbarian world beyond the frontiers, focusing on the fearsome Goths who would one day leave an emperor dead on the battlefield, sack Rome itself, and found a kingdom of their own inside the empire's borders. The barbarian world was tightly tied to Rome, and those connections are what we'll investigate today, through the eyes of a Goth named Wulfila.
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The Goths and the Beginning of Rome's End
In the third episode of The Fall of Rome, we explore the Goths' migration into the Roman Empire and their desperate war for survival against the forces of the Empire. This conflict culminated in the Battle of Adrianople, the worst defeat of a Roman army in more than 350 years. How did a rag-tag group of migrants defeat the cream of the army and leave an emperor dead on the battlefield?
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The Gothic Sack of Rome
In 395, the barbarian Goths rebelled against the Romans and fought a campaign that culminated in the sack of Rome in 410. But were the Goths really barbarous foreigners, or are they better understood as a Roman army seeking a position within the Empire?
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Just How Screwed Up Was the Later Roman Empire?
One of the fundamental questions about the later Roman Empire is just what a mess it really was. Did the barbarians topple a fundamentally healthy, functional state? Or were they merely the straw that broke the camel's back of a diseased, rotten, empire that could no longer hold itself together? In this episode, we discuss just how things had changed between the peak of the Roman Empire in the second century and the beginning of the end in the fourth.
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The Catastrophic Fall Of Roman Britain
In 350, Britain was a thoroughly integrated province of the Roman Empire, full of prosperous, Latin-speaking cities, luxurious villas, and all the other trappings of Roman life. By 500, the cities were gone, the economy had collapsed, and the island was split among an innumerable number of petty kingdoms. What happened? How did everything go so wrong?
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Customer Reviews
Brilliant
No more words needed. Brilliant
Outstanding podcast and highly recommended
This is a supremely well researched and presented podcast. The material is well organised, meticulously considered and presented utilising a variety of critical tools and approaches. It is also underpinned with references to the specialist literature but manages to avoid getting bogged down in arid academic discussion and always remains engaging and lively. The technique of using the real and imagined experiences of individuals navigating the tumultuous events described, provides an immediacy and relatable human context to the narrative history. I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast and have learned a great deal. The episodes on the Huns, the Roman Army and the fall of Roman Britain were particular highlights.
Masterpiece
Never heard a better presented piece of work of a complex subject . Well researched and superlative narrative history