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LOST ROMAN HEROES
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LOST ROMAN HEROES

Author: Matteo & Matthew Storm

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Exploring the lives and times of lost Roman heroes, from Aeneas to Constantine the XI, the Marble Emperor, and ranking them for their cool hero-ness….
89 Episodes
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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?
Rome is under siege! With a force of some five thousand Roman soldiers, Belisarius is put under siege by a >100k man Goth force under King Vitiges. But despite overwhelming odds, Belisarius finds opportunities to keep his enemy uncomfortable. And as the winter sets in, with the audacious sallies from the Aurelian Walls that he leads in person, Belisarius begins to turn the tide.
Belisarius has accomplished the heretofore impossible, with a small force of his handpicked and trained elite troops he has defeated the Vandals and returned Africa to the Romans after a hundred years. After receiving the greatest honor in the ancient Roman world, a proper triumph, the first in five hundred years, the Emperor Justinian sends his favorite general back to the West with the most audacious objective of all, bringing Italy itself back into the Empire. But instead of endless legions, Belisarius hits the road with 7,000 troops - what could possibly go wrong?
Belisarius. Just one name required, in the realm of other one-named immortals, like 'Jordan', 'Ali', 'Caesar', and so on. But this guy is a one-named mystery, worshipped in the ancient world, forgotten today. When we meet him in this episode, he is not let legend, simply a Thracian boy that makes his way to Constantinople, enters Justinian's bodyguard and in a heartbeat is a 28 year old Magister Militum Per Orientem, leading an invasion fleet to Carthage, to punish the Vandals for their mortal insult to Roman honor.
The Emperor Justinian had the grandest of grand dreams, but he could not achieve them alone. The resurrection of the Western Empire was such an exceptionally ambitious objective, it would not just take a great emperor, it would take the most extraordinary team that Rome had ever assembled to pull it off. It just so happens that Justinian had built such a team, filled with some of Rome's all time greats, including: John the Cappadocian, Peter the Patrician, Anthemius of Tralles, Procopius of Caesaria, Narses, Theodora the Augusta, and Belisarius! With peace on the Persia front concluded at the end of 531, Justinian called his team of superheroes to the capital to plan the next step of his grand vision, just in time for the horrific Nika Riot that would tear Rome asunder in five ferocious, bloody days...
A fresh faced boy from war torn Tauresium finds himself in Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, adopted son of a swineherd, making his way in the world, powered by what might just be the most audacious of all dreams. RESTORATION!
How can you begin to describe one of the most remarkable women in history, let alone one of the most remarkable Roman women? Raised by two empresses, mom and grandma, descended from multiple emperors, last in line of one of republican Rome's greatest families, you could take away all of these things and still Juliana would have been a force of nature worthy of remembrance, a woman who stood toe to toe with Popes and Emperors and spoke to them as an equal.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was a polymath philosopher and scion of one of Rome's most ancient families. Along with his father in law Symmachus, he was one of the Senate's last lions, and one of the last keepers of the flame that was Rome in the West! Seeking higher purpose, he served in Theodoric's court, and would finish his life a prisoner in a lonely tower, in which he wrote a gift to the world, the Consolation of Philosophy.
A Goth prince raised in the Imperial Palace in Constantinople, Theodoric the Amal consolidated control of the Ostrogoths, and then journeyed west at the behest of the Emperor Zeno to punish Odoacer, and to rule Italy in the Emperor's name. Ruling from the palace in Ravenna, he would rule well, and audaciously, attempting to resurrect the Empire of the West.
A LOST ROMAN CITIES special episode on Roman Thessalonica. Founded by Cassander, named after the younger sister of Alexander the Great, this city would go on to become the second city of the Roman Empire, and just perhaps, after the city of Rome herself, the longest held of Rome's possessions. What we can say for certain, is that without Roman Thessalonica (Greek Thessaloniki), Rome's history would look very different indeed.
Anastasius Dicorus - a finance dude - saw a wildly complex world very clearly through one blue eye and one black, steering the empire through perilous years after the Fall of the West. When the finance dude died an ancient man he had earned Rome's thanks, leaving behind a stable government and full coffers.
Called down from the mountainous badlands of Isauria to Constantinople by the Emperor Leo, Tarasis son of Kodissa, later known as Zeno, would have to preserve the independence of the emperors of the East. Later he would serve as one of those emperors, and as the West fell, he would be challenged to chart a path for the East, so it would not share the same fate.
Emperor Honorius told Britannia to see to its own defenses and the darkness fell on the island. With the Picts and Saxons overrunning Rome's forgotten province, one man, whose name would become inextricably linked with Arthurian lore, stood against the barbarian tide to protect what was left of Roman Britannia: Ambrosius Aurelianus.
Born of humble stock, elevated to the purple to be a puppet of Aspar, the barbarian power behind the Eastern Empire's throne, Leo had other thoughts in mind. He had watched as other barbarian strongmen had brought the Western Empire to the brink of extinction, and he was determined that the East would not suffer the same fate. But how could you counter the men who controlled the army and the purse strings to save the Roman state?
Aegidius and Syagrius, father and son warriors, born of an ancient Roman-Gaul senatorial lineage, would keep the dream of Rome alive in Gaul long after the Western Empire fell.  In the baddest of bad neighborhoods, for three decades they reminded the world what Rome stood for, with no help from an emperor in Ravenna or Constantinople.  It wasn't about fame for these two, it was about principle!  Prepare to be blown away....
Join Lost Roman Heroes for Part 2 of our Honorable Mentions series, and meet some of the most remarkable Romans you never heard of: Pope Leo I (stood up to Attila), Anthemius the Prefect (built the Theodosian Walls), Constantine III (Britannia's last hope), Flavius Constantius (one of the West's last magister militums), and our favorite, Marcellinus (THE LAST JEDI)!
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Comments (3)

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