I wanted people to experience the suffering and horror of that siege, as though it was something being reported from the front line in Ukraine or whatever. I've never read a full narrative account of what happens when Vesuvius erupts that blends all the various elements of evidence. The trauma of this is measurably immense on Domitian and explains the kind of emperor he becomes. There's almost a kind of Christian quality to him. He would have been very suited to the 4th or 5th century. It's almost as though his understanding of the divine, of the supernatural, of the gods is so strong that it almost requires a kind of single god.
What was Rome like during its zenith? In July 2023 acclaimed historian and co-host of The Rest Is History podcast Tom Holland came to Intelligence Squared to paint a vivid picture of Rome during the Pax Romana, when Rome was the world’s great superpower. Drawing on his new book Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age, Holland described how at its peak the Roman Empire was the wealthiest and most powerful state the world had then seen, stretching from Scotland to Arabia, and containing perhaps a quarter of the human population then alive. Joining Holland in conversation is Hannah Cornwell, Associate Professor of Ancient History at the University of Birmingham and author of Pax and the Politics of Peace: Republic to Principate.
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