LOST ROMAN HEROES

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)!

Lost Roman Heroes get their own episode, true, but as Season 2 draws to close we admit that we made some mistakes.  We missed some guys, sad but true, and some genuinely heroic characters had the great misfortune  of not appearing in the historical record.  It's OK, these are our misfits, the extra-lost, Lost Roman Heroes, that we believe deserve an HONORABLE MENTION (PART 1).  Tune in and meet Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo (Nero's nemesis), Avidius Cassius (Marcus Aurelius almost-successor), Gratian (Valentinian's super capable son, boy-emperor), Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (the last gentleman-pagan), and Timasius (Timmy-tim-tim, Theodosius' general and friend).

A special episode in which we @lostromanheroes get to the heart of the question that has vexed proper, professional historians for centuries - 'why exactly did the Empire of the West fall'?  Search no further, here we reveal the truth!

Having inherited a bankrupt Western Empire, with no treasury, no army, no popular support, and no civitas, Majorian sets about achieving the impossible, knitting the West back together again.  Never before has a Western Emperor started in such dire straits, with such ambitious objectives, and with such exceptional talents.  We cannot help but wish him the very best (as we shed a tear for him, and Rome)...

Majorian was a young Italian commander who served with distinction under Aetius as the great general tried to piece the West back together again.  When Aetius is assassinated, Majorian survives the bloodbath, and the murder of three emperors in rapid succession, leaving him on the cusp of the worst job in the world.

Aetius maneuvers himself to the top of the power structure in the West, only to be brought low by Galla Placidia and loyal Bonfatius.  After suffering his first and only real defeat, there is no one left to oppose him, but rather than seeking the throne for himself, he dedicates himself to piecing Rome back together, taking on his greatest nemesis, Attila himself!

This is the man that even contemporaries referred to as THE LAST ROMAN.  Only son of General Gaudentius, born in Durostorum, a frontier fortress on the Danube, Aetius, he wound up in the West after his father fought under Emperor Theodosius at the Frigidus.  From there he found himself on a fast track that would send him as a hostage to Alaric and the Goths, and from there to Uldin and the Huns where he would grow up amongst Rome's most fearsome enemies.  When he was released by the Huns in his early 30's and returned to Ravenna, there was no man that had the knowledge of those enemies like Aetius, something that the Empress, Galla Placidia, knew all too well, as did his enemies at court...

Granddaughter of bear-loving Emperor Valentinian I, granddaughter of last-of-the-mohicans Count Theodosius, and daughter of Emperor Theodosius who salvaged the Empire after Adrianople, Galla Placidia had the bluest blue running through her veins.  One might be tempted to think, that after having been born in this most privileged of positions, she had an easy life?  Yet that could not be farther from the truth.  Orphaned at the age of 3, besieged in Rome at 16, and kidnapped by the Goths at 17, life threw every conceivable challenge at Galla Placidia and she survived them all, surfing the tumultuous waves of chaos that buffeted the Western Roman Empire in its final days.  Our first female heroine candidate earned every last little ounce of the legend surrounding her life.

Just one year after the Emperor Theodosius died in 395AD, Stilicho, his son in law and the man he trusted to carry the Empire forward, is struggling with an impossible situation.  The frontiers are overrun by an unholy coaltion of barbarian tribes, pushed inexorably towards Rome by the approaching Hun menace.  Meanwhile, Alaric and his Goths, the most powerful military force in the Empire, rampage through the Roman homeland, demanding military honors and a place to settle his people.  Over the course of the next decade, Stilicho would accomplish miracles with paltry resources, protecting Italy, while meeting, and defeating a host of enemies that breached the Roman frontier, but none more fearsome than Alaric, who Stilicho defeated in battle time and again.  Yet after each defeat, Alaric always seemed to slip away, seeding the rumors that would plague Stilicho the rest of his life.  Anti-barbarian sentiment builds.  And though half-Vandal Stilicho was born Roman, and devoted his life to serving and protecting the Empire, a plot is hatched to murder the defender of the Western Empire.  Once Stilicho is eliminated, there is nothing capable of holding Alaric, King of the Goths in check, and no one capable of protecting the City of Rome, birthplace of empire.