Lost Roman Heroes - Episode 93: Gregory of Tours

The young man from Arabissus catches the eye of Tiberius, rises through the Excubitors, and is sent to command the Roman eastern legions in the middle of a major Roman-Persian war with no experience under his belt! And what does the paper pusher do? He wins! And wins again, pushing Roman arms deeper into Persian territory than they have been for many decades. When Emperor Tiberius dies, the rising star Mauricius becomes the new Augustus and gets to work, making radical changes to prepare Rome for a new world, creating the Exarchates, penning the Strategikon, and cutting fat in the legions, while making many, many new enemies in the process...

Lost Roman Heroes is proud to share something very special this week from our friends at the History of Egypt Podcast, which uses ancient texts, art, and archaeology to bring the world of the Nile Valley to life. Written by a trained Egyptologist, the show explores 3000+ years of history, going behind the scenes, far deeper than any documentary or book, to bring you tales of the ancient Egyptians in-their-own-words. You’ll meet characters like Narmer the unifier; Imhotep, the wise governor worshipped as a god of medicine; Hatshepsut the bold, who ruled as a female King; Akhenaten the heretic, who upset the established order, overturning centuries of tradition; Ramesses II, ultimate symbol of pharaonic splendor; Alexander the Great, the first Macedonian pharaoh; and Cleopatra VII, the doomed heir to three millennia of power. Whether you’re interested in pharaohs or gods, monuments or home life, or simply want to journey through some of humanity’s oldest tales, the History of Egypt Podcast has a story to share. You can find the show on all podcasting apps, and on YouTube.

Gallo-Roman aristocrat, Bishop and Saint, Gregory kept a small flame alive in what had been Roman Gaul as the darkness fell in the 6th century with the arrival of Clovis and the Merovingian dynasty that would give birth to France. If it were not for Gregory's histories, this period after the Western Empire had collapsed would be lost to time. But Gregory preserves a remarkable age for us, and paints technicolor portraits of a violent age in which threads of Rome can still be discerned in the lengthening shadows.

Tiberius was a handsome young man, born into a humble Thracian family in post-plague Rome. He enters the civil service as a notarius, and quickly rises to the very top of the Roman world, from Count of the Excubitors, to Magister Militum Praesentalis, to Caesar, and finally to Emperor where he takes over from crazed Justin II. In his reign he reminds Rome that there is hope, distributing imperial largesse, forgiving debts, and struggling to stabilize the impossible frontiers Justinian had created. Just when Rome started to feel like Rome again, he dies young, the victim of poisoning, accidental, or deliberate? With his death, the death of the ancient world feels that much closer...

Belisarius. Who was the man behind the myth? Are we right to feel uncharitably towards Antonina and Narses? Why did Justinian treat his best general and friend so poorly? And why exactly did Procopius place Belisarius on a richly deserved pedestal in the "Wars" and then tear him down in the "Secret History"? Join us with professor and historian Dr. David Parnell, author of "Belisarius and Antonina: Love and War in the Age of Justinian", as we try to answer these vexing questions about the man that did more than any other since Aurelian to restore the Empire to greatness.

Procopius was raised in Caesarea, the capital of Rome's Palaestina province, and was likely educated in Gaza and Beirut. A lawyer by training, he was plucked from obscurity by Justinian, and assigned to the staff of the brilliant young general Belisarius. Procopius would accompany Belisarius across land and sea to every major military command that Belisarius would hold, sharing his privations, organizing his correspondence and administration, and recording the history of the Age of Justinian. Without Procopius, we would know little indeed about Justinian and Belisarius' great deeds, but what can we say about the mysterious historian himself? And why would he attack the man that meant everything to him, the embodiment of a Roman hero?

The year is 542AD and Rome has just gone through its Thanos-moment - one out of every two Romans disappeared over the course of one fateful summer, and Justinian was almost one of them! Having personally survived the plague, he must now chart a course for a Roman empire that has half the soldiers, half the tax payers, half the farmers and fisherman with the same landmass to administer and defend, facing enemies that were unscathed by the two greatest scourged Mother Nature has every thrown at her children: ICE AGE & PLAGUE. Join us for Justinian's grand finale, to see how he picked up the pieces, and how he prepared Rome for the new world that awaited it!

We leave behind Belisarius, Justinian's avenging angel, and return to the Emperor's story. The year is 532AD and Constantinople still smolders in the wake of the Nika Riots. Having narrowly survived a coup thanks to Theodora's spine and Belisarius' steel, Justinian sets about remaking the Roman world. No more tentative rule, no more deference to the Senate or ancient mores, he sets about to show the world that Rome was back, just in time to meet the most fearsome enemies the Empire had ever faced: Ice Age and Plague!

Recalled to Constantinople to lead Rome's response to Persian aggression, Belisarius arrives just in time for Mother Nature to unleash the most vicious one-two punch in the history of humankind, ICE AGE + PLAGUE! Belisarius can navigate these twin disasters, but alas, the politics would prove to be his undoing. Join the last chapter in Belisarius' life, where we work through our complicated emotions and finale have an opportunity to rank the man who many call, THE LAST ROMAN.

The day is March 12th of 538AD, and General Belisarius has just accomplished the impossible. Not only did he survive a year long siege behind Rome’s Aurelian Walls, hopelessly outnumbered 20-1 by a Goth horde, but he sent that Goth horde scurrying north, shamed and afraid. Now Belisarius runs the table, sweep north with his small, elite cavalry, reestablishing Roman control of Italy, landing at the gates of Ravenna! This is the stuff that legends are made of, and as pleased as Justinian was, dark rumors swirl in the capital. What is Belisarius’ true intent?