https://www.spreaker.com/show/a-pillocks-guide-to-british-historyenHistoryCopyright 21s Century Pillockhttps://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/c9036a5f9c297e0149ed76c2bd77676e.jpghttps://www.spreaker.com/show/a-pillocks-guide-to-british-historySun, 16 Sep 2018 15:25:38 +000021s Century Pillock21s Century Pillocksam@21stcentrypillock.comBritish history podcast, starting with Roman Britainyesepisodic21s Century Pillocksam@21stcentrypillock.comBritish history podcast, starting with Roman BritainYeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/12-hadrians-wall-the-one-with-the-overcoTranscript
So the period where the Romans were conquering Britain has ended by our estimation, and we are now properly into Roman Britain. It’s a bit arbitrary, but we are going with it. Governor Agricola got about as far North into Scotland as the Romans ever would. England was mostly under proper control and the Welsh weren't being an issue anymore. This was good for the Romans, and to be honest it probably saved the Britons a bit of grief. All the getting killed by legionaries must have been getting old. It’s not good for us knowing what the hell was going on. The benefit of the fighting in Britain was that the Romans, wrote stuff about it, particularly when they won. For some reason, no Romans wanted to spend time documenting effective admin. So once Agricola left the island it all gets a bit hazy. We don’t even properly know the names and dates of the governors on the island.
 
Agricola had been the governor until 85, but he was recalled by Emperor Domitian after being told to pull back further south in Scotland. Domitian himself was replaced by Emperor Nerva in 96, who was then replaced by Trajan a couple of years later in 98. It was under Trajan that the Roman Empire was the biggest it would ever be, but that didn’t include expanding in Britain. In fact, he was so busy elsewhere that Roman controlled Britannia shrank a bit. Because of all this vagueness, let's have a look it something we definitely know quite a bit about. Emperor Hadrian and his wall.
 
Part One – What was going on before Hadrian turned up
 
Hadrian was made Emperor in 117 AD and he changed the pace of the empire a bit. The previous bloke, Trajan, was all about having a scrap and expanding borders, but Hadrian was all about consolidation. One of the areas he was concerned about was Britain, which was probably fair, the place was worrying. Since the days of Claudius and Plautius’ invasion, the Britons had fairly consistently been kicking off. And that’s just in the bits they already had under control, never mind the areas they didn’t. Saying that by the turn of the century southern England was well on the way to being properly Romanised. Under the Flavians, as in Emperors, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, who we covered in the last companion episode, the Roman army had moved north and there was a spate of building in the south. They were turning towns, like London, St Albans and Canterbury into proper Roman settlements, with important buildings like forums and basilicas. A basilica was a big place that was made to conduct business and legal matters and a forum was a place for public meetings. There were also theatres built in Colchester and Canterbury, as well as Roman baths built all over the place. The Romans did like a bath. Knocking up these places shows that the Romans were comfortable there. It also shows that the Britons were involved enough in the new status quo that they would start moving to big Roman towns and live in little imitations of Rome. Also, you don’t bother building nice permanent buildings if you think some Boudicca tribute act is going to sweep through and set it all on fire.
 
It wasn’t just civil building been done, early in Trajan's rule, between 100 and 110, three Roman forts were rebuilt in stone. These rebuilt forts were at York, Chester and Caerleon. This is significant for a few reasons. All these three places are in Northern England and Wales, the places in Britannia which had been giving the Romans the most grief pre-Scotland. The new forts became the permanent base for the three legions left in Britannia. Which is important because a) none of them were in Southern England, suggesting the Romans weren’t too worried about the Britons...]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1227Sun, 16 Sep 2018 15:06:07 +000021s Century PillockEmperor Hadrian visits Britannia and puts up a massive wall between him and the lunatics living in what is now Scotland. Which seems fair enough. Possibly it was a bit of overkill though. Transcript So the period where the Romans were conquering...Transcript
So the period where the Romans were conquering Britain has ended by our estimation, and we are now properly into Roman Britain. It’s a bit arbitrary, but we are going with it. Governor Agricola got about as far North into Scotland as the Romans ever would. England was mostly under proper control and the Welsh weren't being an issue anymore. This was good for the Romans, and to be honest it probably saved the Britons a bit of grief. All the getting killed by legionaries must have been getting old. It’s not good for us knowing what the hell was going on. The benefit of the fighting in Britain was that the Romans, wrote stuff about it, particularly when they won. For some reason, no Romans wanted to spend time documenting effective admin. So once Agricola left the island it all gets a bit hazy. We don’t even properly know the names and dates of the governors on the island.
 
Agricola had been the governor until 85, but he was recalled by Emperor Domitian after being told to pull back further south in Scotland. Domitian himself was replaced by Emperor Nerva in 96, who was then replaced by Trajan a couple of years later in 98. It was under Trajan that the Roman Empire was the biggest it would ever be, but that didn’t include expanding in Britain. In fact, he was so busy elsewhere that Roman controlled Britannia shrank a bit. Because of all this vagueness, let's have a look it something we definitely know quite a bit about. Emperor Hadrian and his wall.
 
Part One – What was going on before Hadrian turned up
 
Hadrian was made Emperor in 117 AD and he changed the pace of the empire a bit. The previous bloke, Trajan, was all about having a scrap and expanding borders, but Hadrian was all about consolidation. One of the areas he was concerned about was Britain, which was probably fair, the place was worrying. Since the days of Claudius and Plautius’ invasion, the Britons had fairly consistently been kicking off. And that’s just in the bits they already had under control, never mind the areas they didn’t. Saying that by the turn of the century southern England was well on the way to being properly Romanised. Under the Flavians, as in Emperors, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, who we covered in the last companion episode, the Roman army had moved north and there was a spate of building in the south. They were turning towns, like London, St Albans and Canterbury into proper Roman settlements, with important buildings like forums and basilicas. A basilica was a big place that was made to conduct business and legal matters and a forum was a place for public meetings. There were also theatres built in Colchester and Canterbury, as well as Roman baths built all over the place. The Romans did like a bath. Knocking up these places shows that the Romans were comfortable there. It also shows that the Britons were involved enough in the new status quo that they would start moving to big Roman towns and live in little imitations of Rome. Also, you don’t bother building nice permanent buildings if you think some Boudicca tribute act is going to sweep through and set it all on fire.
 
It wasn’t just civil building been done, early in Trajan's rule, between 100 and 110, three Roman forts were rebuilt in stone. These rebuilt forts were at York, Chester and Caerleon. This is significant for a few reasons. All these three places are in Northern England and Wales, the places in Britannia which had been giving the Romans the most grief pre-Scotland. The new forts became the permanent base for the three legions left in Britannia. Which is important because a) none of them were in Southern England, suggesting the Romans weren’t too worried about the Britons...]]>1347yesfull21s Century PillockEmperor Hadrian visits Britannia and puts up a massive wall between him and the lunatics living in what is now Scotland. Which seems fair enough. Possibly it was a bit of overkill though. Transcript So the period where the Romans were conquering Britain has ended by our estimation, and we are now properly into Roman Britain. It’s a bit arbitrary, but we are going with it. Governor Agricola got about as far North into Scotland as the Romans ever would. England was mostly under proper control and the Welsh weren't being an issue anymore. This was good for the Romans, and to be honest it probably saved the Britons a bit of grief. All the getting killed by legionaries must have been getting old. It’s not good for us knowing what the hell was going on. The benefit of the fighting in Britain was that the Romans, wrote stuff about it, particularly when they won. For some reason, no Romans wanted to spend time documenting effective admin. So once Agricola left the island it all gets a bit hazy. We don’t even properly know the names and dates of the governors on the island.   Agricola had been the governor until 85, but he was recalled by Emperor Domitian after being told to pull back further south in Scotland. Domitian himself was replaced by Emperor Nerva in 96, who was then replaced by Trajan a couple of years later in 98. It was under Trajan that the Roman Empire was the biggest it would ever be, but that didn’t include expanding in Britain. In fact, he was so busy elsewhere that Roman controlled Britannia shrank a bit. Because of all this vagueness, let's have a look it something we definitely know quite a bit about. Emperor Hadrian and his wall.   Part One – What was going on before Hadrian turned up   Hadrian was made Emperor in 117 AD and he changed the pace of the empire a bit. The previous bloke, Trajan, was all about having a scrap and expanding borders, but Hadrian was all about consolidation. One of the areas he was concerned about was Britain, which was probably fair, the place was worrying. Since the days of Claudius and Plautius’ invasion, the Britons had fairly consistently been kicking off. And that’s just in the bits they already had under control, never mind the areas they didn’t. Saying that by the turn of the century southern England was well on the way to being properly Romanised. Under the Flavians, as in Emperors, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, who we covered in the last companion episode, the Roman army had moved north and there was a spate of building in the south. They were turning towns, like London, St Albans and Canterbury into proper Roman settlements, with important buildings like forums and basilicas. A basilica was a big place that was made to conduct business and legal matters and a forum was a place for public meetings. There were also theatres built in Colchester and Canterbury, as well as Roman baths built all over the place. The Romans did like a bath. Knocking up these places shows that the Romans were comfortable there. It also shows that the Britons were involved enough in the new status quo that they would start moving to big Roman towns and live in little imitations of Rome. Also, you don’t bother building nice permanent buildings if you think some Boudicca tribute act is going to sweep through and set it all on fire.   It wasn’t just civil building been done, early in Trajan's rule, between 100 and 110, three Roman forts were rebuilt in stone. These rebuilt forts were at York, Chester and Caerleon. This is significant for a few reasons. All these three places are in Northern England and Wales, the places in Britannia which had been giving the Romans the most grief pre-Scotland. The new forts became the permanent base for the three legions left in Britannia. Which is important because a) none of them were in Southern England, suggesting the Romans weren’t too worried about the Britons...Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/11-1-the-flavian-emperors-the-one-with-tTranscript
In our history of Britain episode, we had a quick going over Agricola and his march north through Wales, England and Scotland. He was governor of Britannia for ages, compared to the average, he was knocking about on our island for about seven years. And his time in charge of the province spanned three Emperors back in Rome. In fact, he covered all three of the Flavian emperors.
In this episode, we ask is it still possible for an Emperor to die of natural causes, have we found a war that Tacitus didn’t approve of? and is it ever advisable to annoy the Senate?
 
Part One – The Winner Takes The Big Job
 
The first of the Emperors Agricola put up with as Governor of Britannia, was the one who gave him the job in the first place, Vespasian. We have already seen Vespasian a few times. Once when he was involved in invading Britain with Claudius and Plautius, and just recently when he was the eventual winner of the Emperor Royal Rumble that was the Year of The Four Emperors. He reigned from 69 to his death from an illness in 79. The stuff written down about him as Emperor is strangely lacking in detail, considering he was about for that long.
He was declared Emperor by the Senate in Rome, while he was still in Egypt. It took him quite a while to make it to Rome, apparently because of bad weather. The early years of his reign must have been a bit shit, considering he was rebuilding after a whole year and a bit of wannabe emperors marching around the empire nacking everything. One of the things he did do, in order to try and rebuild what had been damaged, was raise taxes. He was big into admin and was heavily involved in a lot of the bureaucratic side of things, which is something we can’t see the likes of Nero doing. He reviewed the agricultural lands of the Empire, so he could properly reform who paid what in tax. Vespasian also added in additional taxes, like the tax on piss. The ammonia in urine was important in the treating of cloth, so it was collected and sold to folk in that industry. As well as reform and innovation in taxes he reversed some of the madder sounding decisions made by Nero, like stopping Greece being tax exempt. A law which the Greek people seem to think is still in place. All of this would have gone down about as well as any tax raise in the history of finance, and significantly there was trouble over it in Alexandria in Egypt. This was a problem, because a) it's where Vespasian was early on in his reign b) it's where a fair bit of Vespasian's support to become Emperor had come from and c) it's where Rome got a lot of its food from in grain form. Considering the whole civil war thing, having Rome go hungry would have been a recipe for yet another very short-lived emperor. Vespasian sorted it all out though, which is something he just seemed to do. He was a bit like Agricola in that respect. He just got stuff done.
We say we didn’t find as much info as we would expect on Vespasian, but there is one thing we got quite a bit about from reading around Vespasian. That is how heavily involved in propaganda he got into. Coins and statues were a big thing for Emperors when it came to getting your name and face out there to make you look cool. It looks like Vespasian went big on the coins featuring complementary images and text on them. To be honest that all seems fairly standard Emperor behaviour. What is a bit odder is the whole supernatural element to it. He really went for the idea that he was emperor as part of a divine inevitability, touting prophecies made that said a man like Vespasian would be a messianic-like leader. There were also stories about him miraculously healing the sick. All the greatest hits.]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1207Wed, 22 Aug 2018 21:37:41 +000021s Century PillockAgricola was knocking about in Britain for a big chunk of a whole dynasty of Roman Emperors. Some of them were nice, but one of them was a proper shitbag. Introducing The Flavians. Transcript In our history of Britain episode, we had a quick going...Transcript
In our history of Britain episode, we had a quick going over Agricola and his march north through Wales, England and Scotland. He was governor of Britannia for ages, compared to the average, he was knocking about on our island for about seven years. And his time in charge of the province spanned three Emperors back in Rome. In fact, he covered all three of the Flavian emperors.
In this episode, we ask is it still possible for an Emperor to die of natural causes, have we found a war that Tacitus didn’t approve of? and is it ever advisable to annoy the Senate?
 
Part One – The Winner Takes The Big Job
 
The first of the Emperors Agricola put up with as Governor of Britannia, was the one who gave him the job in the first place, Vespasian. We have already seen Vespasian a few times. Once when he was involved in invading Britain with Claudius and Plautius, and just recently when he was the eventual winner of the Emperor Royal Rumble that was the Year of The Four Emperors. He reigned from 69 to his death from an illness in 79. The stuff written down about him as Emperor is strangely lacking in detail, considering he was about for that long.
He was declared Emperor by the Senate in Rome, while he was still in Egypt. It took him quite a while to make it to Rome, apparently because of bad weather. The early years of his reign must have been a bit shit, considering he was rebuilding after a whole year and a bit of wannabe emperors marching around the empire nacking everything. One of the things he did do, in order to try and rebuild what had been damaged, was raise taxes. He was big into admin and was heavily involved in a lot of the bureaucratic side of things, which is something we can’t see the likes of Nero doing. He reviewed the agricultural lands of the Empire, so he could properly reform who paid what in tax. Vespasian also added in additional taxes, like the tax on piss. The ammonia in urine was important in the treating of cloth, so it was collected and sold to folk in that industry. As well as reform and innovation in taxes he reversed some of the madder sounding decisions made by Nero, like stopping Greece being tax exempt. A law which the Greek people seem to think is still in place. All of this would have gone down about as well as any tax raise in the history of finance, and significantly there was trouble over it in Alexandria in Egypt. This was a problem, because a) it's where Vespasian was early on in his reign b) it's where a fair bit of Vespasian's support to become Emperor had come from and c) it's where Rome got a lot of its food from in grain form. Considering the whole civil war thing, having Rome go hungry would have been a recipe for yet another very short-lived emperor. Vespasian sorted it all out though, which is something he just seemed to do. He was a bit like Agricola in that respect. He just got stuff done.
We say we didn’t find as much info as we would expect on Vespasian, but there is one thing we got quite a bit about from reading around Vespasian. That is how heavily involved in propaganda he got into. Coins and statues were a big thing for Emperors when it came to getting your name and face out there to make you look cool. It looks like Vespasian went big on the coins featuring complementary images and text on them. To be honest that all seems fairly standard Emperor behaviour. What is a bit odder is the whole supernatural element to it. He really went for the idea that he was emperor as part of a divine inevitability, touting prophecies made that said a man like Vespasian would be a messianic-like leader. There were also stories about him miraculously healing the sick. All the greatest hits.]]>1005yesfull21s Century PillockAgricola was knocking about in Britain for a big chunk of a whole dynasty of Roman Emperors. Some of them were nice, but one of them was a proper shitbag. Introducing The Flavians. Transcript In our history of Britain episode, we had a quick going over Agricola and his march north through Wales, England and Scotland. He was governor of Britannia for ages, compared to the average, he was knocking about on our island for about seven years. And his time in charge of the province spanned three Emperors back in Rome. In fact, he covered all three of the Flavian emperors. In this episode, we ask is it still possible for an Emperor to die of natural causes, have we found a war that Tacitus didn’t approve of? and is it ever advisable to annoy the Senate?   Part One – The Winner Takes The Big Job   The first of the Emperors Agricola put up with as Governor of Britannia, was the one who gave him the job in the first place, Vespasian. We have already seen Vespasian a few times. Once when he was involved in invading Britain with Claudius and Plautius, and just recently when he was the eventual winner of the Emperor Royal Rumble that was the Year of The Four Emperors. He reigned from 69 to his death from an illness in 79. The stuff written down about him as Emperor is strangely lacking in detail, considering he was about for that long. He was declared Emperor by the Senate in Rome, while he was still in Egypt. It took him quite a while to make it to Rome, apparently because of bad weather. The early years of his reign must have been a bit shit, considering he was rebuilding after a whole year and a bit of wannabe emperors marching around the empire nacking everything. One of the things he did do, in order to try and rebuild what had been damaged, was raise taxes. He was big into admin and was heavily involved in a lot of the bureaucratic side of things, which is something we can’t see the likes of Nero doing. He reviewed the agricultural lands of the Empire, so he could properly reform who paid what in tax. Vespasian also added in additional taxes, like the tax on piss. The ammonia in urine was important in the treating of cloth, so it was collected and sold to folk in that industry. As well as reform and innovation in taxes he reversed some of the madder sounding decisions made by Nero, like stopping Greece being tax exempt. A law which the Greek people seem to think is still in place. All of this would have gone down about as well as any tax raise in the history of finance, and significantly there was trouble over it in Alexandria in Egypt. This was a problem, because a) it's where Vespasian was early on in his reign b) it's where a fair bit of Vespasian's support to become Emperor had come from and c) it's where Rome got a lot of its food from in grain form. Considering the whole civil war thing, having Rome go hungry would have been a recipe for yet another very short-lived emperor. Vespasian sorted it all out though, which is something he just seemed to do. He was a bit like Agricola in that respect. He just got stuff done. We say we didn’t find as much info as we would expect on Vespasian, but there is one thing we got quite a bit about from reading around Vespasian. That is how heavily involved in propaganda he got into. Coins and statues were a big thing for Emperors when it came to getting your name and face out there to make you look cool. It looks like Vespasian went big on the coins featuring complementary images and text on them. To be honest that all seems fairly standard Emperor behaviour. What is a bit odder is the whole supernatural element to it. He really went for the idea that he was emperor as part of a divine inevitability, touting prophecies made that said a man like Vespasian would be a messianic-like leader. There were also stories about him miraculously healing the sick. All the greatest hits.Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/11-agricola-the-end-of-the-roman-invasioTranscript
 
The next governor was Gnaeus Julius Agricola, and once we get to the end of his governorship we are going to call that the end of the 41ish year long Roman invasion of Britain. That is fairly arbitrary, but they had spent the last 40 years consistently gaining more and more territory, and by the end of Agricola they will have got about as far as they will. Don’t get us wrong, the bit we have decided is no longer an ‘invasion’, but ‘Roman rule’ is still going to be mainly people kicking up a fuss followed by Romans running around giving those uppity folk a beating, while at the same time fighting amongst themselves. But for now, sit back and enjoy the last bit of invasion chat.
In this episode, we ask is it a good idea to outshine your boss? Have the Scottish always been a bit annoying? And is Britain an island?
We have occasionally mentioned a few Roman authors that historians get a lot of their information from. One of the most frequently mentioned by us is Tacitus, because we really like how aggressive he is. He wrote a fair few books, and one of the main ones was a biography of Agricola, which is very handy for this episode. The problem we usually get with researching the Roman period is that we are very unsure about a lot of what happened. First, we need for someone to have written about everything, and then we need that writing to have survived 2000 years. It a miracle we have a record of anything at all. So while we are grateful to Tacitus for his biography, it would be a bit dangerous to trust everything he says. Firstly because you can’t trust anybody. I mean could you imagine in a thousand years historians trying to write a history of Britain using our newspapers. It would be a cruel capitalist dystopia, where everyone under the age of 35 is a communist. And the most racist/islamophobic place on earth, where inexplicably 90% of everyone is a Muslim of Asian descent. Add to this in Tacitus case the fact that Agricola was Tacticus’ father-in-law. You might not like your in-laws, but you would need a massive pair of brass bollocks to write a whole book having a go at them. So we imagine it's a bit more complementary than it needed to be. Tacitus also wasn't big on dates and places, which for historians is unbelievably annoying. We don't even know for sure the dates of his governorship, but we like the guess of 77 to 85. All that being said let's have a look at the governorship of Agricola.
Agricola had previous experience of Britain and served in the army under Suetonius meaning he was around during Boudicca's rebellion. It might have been because of this familiarity which meant he wasted no time in getting stuck in. Following on from the previous governor Frontius’ work, he went diving into Wales, and his focus was the Ordovices of North Wales. This wasn’t too controversial a decision since Frontinus had been campaigning in Wales for the years before Agricola. What was controversial was that he turned up in Britannia and immediately went on the march, despite the fact it didn’t fit in with the traditional campaigning season. It was much harder to fight in in the Autumn going into winter than earlier in the year. It made it much harder to get the food you need to keep an army on the go after autumn. Also, who wants to be outside when it's cold and rainy? Despite the wind and the rain, by all accounts, he didn’t find it too difficult to dispatch them, and he marched on Anglesey. This will have had significance to the Celts, as we know it was an important druidic religious site for them. It was also a handy place for people who had made the Romans angry to hide out. Unlike Suetonius’ attempt at pacifying the people of Anglesey,]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1204Wed, 15 Aug 2018 18:22:11 +000021s Century PillockThe Romans have finally reached about as far north as they will in Britain, with governor Agricola having a proper fight with the Scottish tribes. He even sort of wins it. Transcript   The next governor was Gnaeus Julius Agricola, and once we get to...Transcript
 
The next governor was Gnaeus Julius Agricola, and once we get to the end of his governorship we are going to call that the end of the 41ish year long Roman invasion of Britain. That is fairly arbitrary, but they had spent the last 40 years consistently gaining more and more territory, and by the end of Agricola they will have got about as far as they will. Don’t get us wrong, the bit we have decided is no longer an ‘invasion’, but ‘Roman rule’ is still going to be mainly people kicking up a fuss followed by Romans running around giving those uppity folk a beating, while at the same time fighting amongst themselves. But for now, sit back and enjoy the last bit of invasion chat.
In this episode, we ask is it a good idea to outshine your boss? Have the Scottish always been a bit annoying? And is Britain an island?
We have occasionally mentioned a few Roman authors that historians get a lot of their information from. One of the most frequently mentioned by us is Tacitus, because we really like how aggressive he is. He wrote a fair few books, and one of the main ones was a biography of Agricola, which is very handy for this episode. The problem we usually get with researching the Roman period is that we are very unsure about a lot of what happened. First, we need for someone to have written about everything, and then we need that writing to have survived 2000 years. It a miracle we have a record of anything at all. So while we are grateful to Tacitus for his biography, it would be a bit dangerous to trust everything he says. Firstly because you can’t trust anybody. I mean could you imagine in a thousand years historians trying to write a history of Britain using our newspapers. It would be a cruel capitalist dystopia, where everyone under the age of 35 is a communist. And the most racist/islamophobic place on earth, where inexplicably 90% of everyone is a Muslim of Asian descent. Add to this in Tacitus case the fact that Agricola was Tacticus’ father-in-law. You might not like your in-laws, but you would need a massive pair of brass bollocks to write a whole book having a go at them. So we imagine it's a bit more complementary than it needed to be. Tacitus also wasn't big on dates and places, which for historians is unbelievably annoying. We don't even know for sure the dates of his governorship, but we like the guess of 77 to 85. All that being said let's have a look at the governorship of Agricola.
Agricola had previous experience of Britain and served in the army under Suetonius meaning he was around during Boudicca's rebellion. It might have been because of this familiarity which meant he wasted no time in getting stuck in. Following on from the previous governor Frontius’ work, he went diving into Wales, and his focus was the Ordovices of North Wales. This wasn’t too controversial a decision since Frontinus had been campaigning in Wales for the years before Agricola. What was controversial was that he turned up in Britannia and immediately went on the march, despite the fact it didn’t fit in with the traditional campaigning season. It was much harder to fight in in the Autumn going into winter than earlier in the year. It made it much harder to get the food you need to keep an army on the go after autumn. Also, who wants to be outside when it's cold and rainy? Despite the wind and the rain, by all accounts, he didn’t find it too difficult to dispatch them, and he marched on Anglesey. This will have had significance to the Celts, as we know it was an important druidic religious site for them. It was also a handy place for people who had made the Romans angry to hide out. Unlike Suetonius’ attempt at pacifying the people of Anglesey,]]>874yesfull21s Century PillockThe Romans have finally reached about as far north as they will in Britain, with governor Agricola having a proper fight with the Scottish tribes. He even sort of wins it. Transcript   The next governor was Gnaeus Julius Agricola, and once we get to the end of his governorship we are going to call that the end of the 41ish year long Roman invasion of Britain. That is fairly arbitrary, but they had spent the last 40 years consistently gaining more and more territory, and by the end of Agricola they will have got about as far as they will. Don’t get us wrong, the bit we have decided is no longer an ‘invasion’, but ‘Roman rule’ is still going to be mainly people kicking up a fuss followed by Romans running around giving those uppity folk a beating, while at the same time fighting amongst themselves. But for now, sit back and enjoy the last bit of invasion chat. In this episode, we ask is it a good idea to outshine your boss? Have the Scottish always been a bit annoying? And is Britain an island? We have occasionally mentioned a few Roman authors that historians get a lot of their information from. One of the most frequently mentioned by us is Tacitus, because we really like how aggressive he is. He wrote a fair few books, and one of the main ones was a biography of Agricola, which is very handy for this episode. The problem we usually get with researching the Roman period is that we are very unsure about a lot of what happened. First, we need for someone to have written about everything, and then we need that writing to have survived 2000 years. It a miracle we have a record of anything at all. So while we are grateful to Tacitus for his biography, it would be a bit dangerous to trust everything he says. Firstly because you can’t trust anybody. I mean could you imagine in a thousand years historians trying to write a history of Britain using our newspapers. It would be a cruel capitalist dystopia, where everyone under the age of 35 is a communist. And the most racist/islamophobic place on earth, where inexplicably 90% of everyone is a Muslim of Asian descent. Add to this in Tacitus case the fact that Agricola was Tacticus’ father-in-law. You might not like your in-laws, but you would need a massive pair of brass bollocks to write a whole book having a go at them. So we imagine it's a bit more complementary than it needed to be. Tacitus also wasn't big on dates and places, which for historians is unbelievably annoying. We don't even know for sure the dates of his governorship, but we like the guess of 77 to 85. All that being said let's have a look at the governorship of Agricola. Agricola had previous experience of Britain and served in the army under Suetonius meaning he was around during Boudicca's rebellion. It might have been because of this familiarity which meant he wasted no time in getting stuck in. Following on from the previous governor Frontius’ work, he went diving into Wales, and his focus was the Ordovices of North Wales. This wasn’t too controversial a decision since Frontinus had been campaigning in Wales for the years before Agricola. What was controversial was that he turned up in Britannia and immediately went on the march, despite the fact it didn’t fit in with the traditional campaigning season. It was much harder to fight in in the Autumn going into winter than earlier in the year. It made it much harder to get the food you need to keep an army on the go after autumn. Also, who wants to be outside when it's cold and rainy? Despite the wind and the rain, by all accounts, he didn’t find it too difficult to dispatch them, and he marched on Anglesey. This will have had significance to the Celts, as we know it was an important druidic religious site for them. It was also a handy place for people who had made the Romans angry to hide out. Unlike Suetonius’ attempt at pacifying the people of Anglesey,Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/10-1-the-year-of-the-four-emperors-the-oTranscript
 
In our last History of Britain episode we went over what was going on in Britain after Boudiccia. The event that cast a long shadow over that was the Year of The Four Emperors. It was a right old mess. So let's have a look at that.
This week we ask ourselves how bad does a posh job have to be before people stop wanting it? How do morons keep rising to the top and what does Bryan Adams and Judea have in common.
69 was the Year of The Four Emperors, and it was kicked off by the death of Nero. As we have said Nero was a bit odd, he at the very least had mother issues. and the important people of Rome weren't a fan big of his. As the years of his rule went on he lost more and more friends in the Senate. In 65, there was something called the Pisonian conspiracy, which attempted to return Rome back to a Republic as it was in the years before Emperor. It didn't succeed, but it showed some cracks in Nero’s rule you could have driven a bus through. In 68, Caius Julius Vindex, the governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, (a bit of Gaul) rebelled against Nero and resulted in an attempt to make Servius Sulpicius Galba, the current governor in Hispania Tarraconensis (which is in Northern Spain), Emperor.
Videx’s revolt in Gaul didn't work, because a commander of a Roman army in Germania (Germany for those who didn't make that link) got involved. The commander, Lucius Verginius Rufus, attacked and beat Videx, leaving Galba looking as a bad bet for staying alive for more than 5 minutes, let alone becoming Emperor. That was until Nero’s personal guard, the Praetorian Guard, had had enough of Nero and supported Galba. Nero saw the way this was going and escaped the city and committed suicide, leaving the Senate to legitimately claim Galba as Emperor of Rome in June 68. 

 
Part one – Emperor 1 – Galba
 
Galba had made it, he was top of the pile, cock of the walk, Billy Big Balls and king of the world. And he immediately started messing it up. On his way from Spain to Rome, he was very unpleasant to people who didn’t immediately accept him as Emperor. He also didn’t fancy paying the Praetorian Guard the rewards he had been promised to them when they switched support to him from Nero. Just to highlight how stupid, on the border of suicidal that was, this was the same Praetorian Guard who are well armed and trained to protect Galba and his household. The same guard whose backing of Galba for Emperor was an important factor in Nero now not being an Emperor, but definitely being dead. This didn’t happen in the deep and distant past, it just happened and Galba should know because he was partly his fault it happened at all. It’s ok though, he didn’t need to support of the people between Spain and Rome, or his own Praetorian Guard. He could still count on the great and the good of Rome itself to support him politically. That was until, in a state of paranoia, he started executing people he thought were conspiring against him – for example, Senators (a.k.a. the great and good of Rome). Instead of trying to win support, he just killed off any dissenters to his rule.
Even without annoying/killing everyone close to him, Galba also had problems further afield in Germania. The army there had just defeated the Roman army in Gaul who had supported Galba, so Galba wasn’t a big fan of theirs. He decided to replace Rufus, their commander, with someone he liked better. This wasn’t an ideal time for turmoil in Germania, as there was a previously friendly tribe there who were now feeling less friendly. The Batavi were a small tribe, but what they lacked in size they made up for in being mental. Most of the Batavian males served in the Roman Army,]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1198Wed, 20 Jun 2018 21:06:18 +000021s Century PillockNero is dead, and it got so bad after that people must have almost missed him. The Year Of The Four Emperors is exactly what it says on the tin. Transcript   In our last History of Britain episode we went over what was going on in Britain after...Transcript
 
In our last History of Britain episode we went over what was going on in Britain after Boudiccia. The event that cast a long shadow over that was the Year of The Four Emperors. It was a right old mess. So let's have a look at that.
This week we ask ourselves how bad does a posh job have to be before people stop wanting it? How do morons keep rising to the top and what does Bryan Adams and Judea have in common.
69 was the Year of The Four Emperors, and it was kicked off by the death of Nero. As we have said Nero was a bit odd, he at the very least had mother issues. and the important people of Rome weren't a fan big of his. As the years of his rule went on he lost more and more friends in the Senate. In 65, there was something called the Pisonian conspiracy, which attempted to return Rome back to a Republic as it was in the years before Emperor. It didn't succeed, but it showed some cracks in Nero’s rule you could have driven a bus through. In 68, Caius Julius Vindex, the governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, (a bit of Gaul) rebelled against Nero and resulted in an attempt to make Servius Sulpicius Galba, the current governor in Hispania Tarraconensis (which is in Northern Spain), Emperor.
Videx’s revolt in Gaul didn't work, because a commander of a Roman army in Germania (Germany for those who didn't make that link) got involved. The commander, Lucius Verginius Rufus, attacked and beat Videx, leaving Galba looking as a bad bet for staying alive for more than 5 minutes, let alone becoming Emperor. That was until Nero’s personal guard, the Praetorian Guard, had had enough of Nero and supported Galba. Nero saw the way this was going and escaped the city and committed suicide, leaving the Senate to legitimately claim Galba as Emperor of Rome in June 68. 

 
Part one – Emperor 1 – Galba
 
Galba had made it, he was top of the pile, cock of the walk, Billy Big Balls and king of the world. And he immediately started messing it up. On his way from Spain to Rome, he was very unpleasant to people who didn’t immediately accept him as Emperor. He also didn’t fancy paying the Praetorian Guard the rewards he had been promised to them when they switched support to him from Nero. Just to highlight how stupid, on the border of suicidal that was, this was the same Praetorian Guard who are well armed and trained to protect Galba and his household. The same guard whose backing of Galba for Emperor was an important factor in Nero now not being an Emperor, but definitely being dead. This didn’t happen in the deep and distant past, it just happened and Galba should know because he was partly his fault it happened at all. It’s ok though, he didn’t need to support of the people between Spain and Rome, or his own Praetorian Guard. He could still count on the great and the good of Rome itself to support him politically. That was until, in a state of paranoia, he started executing people he thought were conspiring against him – for example, Senators (a.k.a. the great and good of Rome). Instead of trying to win support, he just killed off any dissenters to his rule.
Even without annoying/killing everyone close to him, Galba also had problems further afield in Germania. The army there had just defeated the Roman army in Gaul who had supported Galba, so Galba wasn’t a big fan of theirs. He decided to replace Rufus, their commander, with someone he liked better. This wasn’t an ideal time for turmoil in Germania, as there was a previously friendly tribe there who were now feeling less friendly. The Batavi were a small tribe, but what they lacked in size they made up for in being mental. Most of the Batavian males served in the Roman Army,]]>611yesfull21s Century PillockNero is dead, and it got so bad after that people must have almost missed him. The Year Of The Four Emperors is exactly what it says on the tin. Transcript   In our last History of Britain episode we went over what was going on in Britain after Boudiccia. The event that cast a long shadow over that was the Year of The Four Emperors. It was a right old mess. So let's have a look at that. This week we ask ourselves how bad does a posh job have to be before people stop wanting it? How do morons keep rising to the top and what does Bryan Adams and Judea have in common. 69 was the Year of The Four Emperors, and it was kicked off by the death of Nero. As we have said Nero was a bit odd, he at the very least had mother issues. and the important people of Rome weren't a fan big of his. As the years of his rule went on he lost more and more friends in the Senate. In 65, there was something called the Pisonian conspiracy, which attempted to return Rome back to a Republic as it was in the years before Emperor. It didn't succeed, but it showed some cracks in Nero’s rule you could have driven a bus through. In 68, Caius Julius Vindex, the governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, (a bit of Gaul) rebelled against Nero and resulted in an attempt to make Servius Sulpicius Galba, the current governor in Hispania Tarraconensis (which is in Northern Spain), Emperor. Videx’s revolt in Gaul didn't work, because a commander of a Roman army in Germania (Germany for those who didn't make that link) got involved. The commander, Lucius Verginius Rufus, attacked and beat Videx, leaving Galba looking as a bad bet for staying alive for more than 5 minutes, let alone becoming Emperor. That was until Nero’s personal guard, the Praetorian Guard, had had enough of Nero and supported Galba. Nero saw the way this was going and escaped the city and committed suicide, leaving the Senate to legitimately claim Galba as Emperor of Rome in June 68.    Part one – Emperor 1 – Galba   Galba had made it, he was top of the pile, cock of the walk, Billy Big Balls and king of the world. And he immediately started messing it up. On his way from Spain to Rome, he was very unpleasant to people who didn’t immediately accept him as Emperor. He also didn’t fancy paying the Praetorian Guard the rewards he had been promised to them when they switched support to him from Nero. Just to highlight how stupid, on the border of suicidal that was, this was the same Praetorian Guard who are well armed and trained to protect Galba and his household. The same guard whose backing of Galba for Emperor was an important factor in Nero now not being an Emperor, but definitely being dead. This didn’t happen in the deep and distant past, it just happened and Galba should know because he was partly his fault it happened at all. It’s ok though, he didn’t need to support of the people between Spain and Rome, or his own Praetorian Guard. He could still count on the great and the good of Rome itself to support him politically. That was until, in a state of paranoia, he started executing people he thought were conspiring against him – for example, Senators (a.k.a. the great and good of Rome). Instead of trying to win support, he just killed off any dissenters to his rule. Even without annoying/killing everyone close to him, Galba also had problems further afield in Germania. The army there had just defeated the Roman army in Gaul who had supported Galba, so Galba wasn’t a big fan of theirs. He decided to replace Rufus, their commander, with someone he liked better. This wasn’t an ideal time for turmoil in Germania, as there was a previously friendly tribe there who were now feeling less friendly. The Batavi were a small tribe, but what they lacked in size they made up for in being mental. Most of the Batavian males served in the Roman Army,Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/9-1-emperor-nero-the-one-where-everyone-Transcript – Emperor Nero
We have got all the way to 60/61 AD in our history of Britain. Which means we have already had Nero as Emperor of Rome for about 6 years. Since he is an emperor everyone has heard of, if only for his excellent coffee franchises, we though he should get his own episode.
And in this episode we shall be asking, was Nero really as mad as he looks? Was Nero even the worst person in his family? And how far is it acceptable to go in order to build a 30 ft statue of yourself?
 
Part 1 – Dead Relations
 
Nero was born in 37AD into quite the posh family. Augustus was his great great granddad and his mam, Agrippina was Caligula's sister. Which means he was the great nephew of Claudius. Then Claudius, who married Agrippina, adopted him as a son, which is how he got the job as Emperor. Although, as we mentioned way back in a past episode, it wasn't all that straight forward.

His mam had to do a bit of intriguing that would make George RR Martin proud. Claudius already had a son, Britannicus, who was named after Claudius supposed conquering of Britain (we aren't going to let it go. Team Plautius). Britannicus was from a previous marriage, but now there was a new wife in town her son, Nero, was to be the heir, something which the new wife, Agrippina was very keen on. We have talked about Agrippina before, and the problem of how ambitious women in history are treated. However, if she was half as horrible as the Roman writers would have us believe she was proper horrible. Apparently Claudius and Agrippina had a falling out, and he started to sway towards putting Britannicus back as heir. Agrippina would not have been happy with that. Which is why, both at the time and now, Claudius dying, probably from being poisoned, is often blamed on Agrippina. Claudius, being an Emperor was not short of people who wanted to see him off, so maybe Agrippina had nothing to do with it. But either way it doesn’t sounds like she will have been upset about it.
As an aside, we have mentioned his less than conventional family, but we should also point out someone else who had influence over in his formative years. He and Britannicus were both tutored by Seneca. Seneca was one of the blokes who we decided was an arsehole to the Iceni tribe to kick off Boudicca's rebellion. We just thought we should point out that one of his  role models was that dickhead.
So we have Nero being made Emperor at the age of 16 in 54 AD. His reign lasted 13 years, but before we get to how it ended, we should look at what sort of Emperor he was. He doesn’t have the best reputation, but let's have a look if that's deserved or not.
Nero's early reign seemed to be dominated by his mam. Which may have been a good thing, or may have been a bad thing. I mean pretty much every 16 year old boy is a dickhead, never mind a 16 year old boy who is also an emperor of the biggest empire in the known world. So a bit of adult guidance might have been a bonus, on the other hand Agrippina seems to have been a maniac.
A big downside to Nero's reign was the higher than average volume of posh people getting murdered. For a start, to get the job in the first place his adopted dad got poisoned. It might be a bit harsh to blame Nero for this, but his mam Agrippina carried on getting stuck in on it even after Claudius was dead and buried. She seemed to be keen on making sure she was the one that Nero trusted to help run things. This mean killing a range of people including a grandson of Augustus, who presumably had too much of a claim on being Emperor himself. She also did for one of Nero's aunties,]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1177Thu, 07 Jun 2018 14:19:44 +000021s Century PillockYou've heard of Emperor Nero. We all have. We doubt it was good stuff you did hear. apart from him getting a decent tune out of a fiddle. Let's have a look at if he was as big a dickhead as he looked. Transcript – Emperor Nero We have got all the way...Transcript – Emperor Nero
We have got all the way to 60/61 AD in our history of Britain. Which means we have already had Nero as Emperor of Rome for about 6 years. Since he is an emperor everyone has heard of, if only for his excellent coffee franchises, we though he should get his own episode.
And in this episode we shall be asking, was Nero really as mad as he looks? Was Nero even the worst person in his family? And how far is it acceptable to go in order to build a 30 ft statue of yourself?
 
Part 1 – Dead Relations
 
Nero was born in 37AD into quite the posh family. Augustus was his great great granddad and his mam, Agrippina was Caligula's sister. Which means he was the great nephew of Claudius. Then Claudius, who married Agrippina, adopted him as a son, which is how he got the job as Emperor. Although, as we mentioned way back in a past episode, it wasn't all that straight forward.

His mam had to do a bit of intriguing that would make George RR Martin proud. Claudius already had a son, Britannicus, who was named after Claudius supposed conquering of Britain (we aren't going to let it go. Team Plautius). Britannicus was from a previous marriage, but now there was a new wife in town her son, Nero, was to be the heir, something which the new wife, Agrippina was very keen on. We have talked about Agrippina before, and the problem of how ambitious women in history are treated. However, if she was half as horrible as the Roman writers would have us believe she was proper horrible. Apparently Claudius and Agrippina had a falling out, and he started to sway towards putting Britannicus back as heir. Agrippina would not have been happy with that. Which is why, both at the time and now, Claudius dying, probably from being poisoned, is often blamed on Agrippina. Claudius, being an Emperor was not short of people who wanted to see him off, so maybe Agrippina had nothing to do with it. But either way it doesn’t sounds like she will have been upset about it.
As an aside, we have mentioned his less than conventional family, but we should also point out someone else who had influence over in his formative years. He and Britannicus were both tutored by Seneca. Seneca was one of the blokes who we decided was an arsehole to the Iceni tribe to kick off Boudicca's rebellion. We just thought we should point out that one of his  role models was that dickhead.
So we have Nero being made Emperor at the age of 16 in 54 AD. His reign lasted 13 years, but before we get to how it ended, we should look at what sort of Emperor he was. He doesn’t have the best reputation, but let's have a look if that's deserved or not.
Nero's early reign seemed to be dominated by his mam. Which may have been a good thing, or may have been a bad thing. I mean pretty much every 16 year old boy is a dickhead, never mind a 16 year old boy who is also an emperor of the biggest empire in the known world. So a bit of adult guidance might have been a bonus, on the other hand Agrippina seems to have been a maniac.
A big downside to Nero's reign was the higher than average volume of posh people getting murdered. For a start, to get the job in the first place his adopted dad got poisoned. It might be a bit harsh to blame Nero for this, but his mam Agrippina carried on getting stuck in on it even after Claudius was dead and buried. She seemed to be keen on making sure she was the one that Nero trusted to help run things. This mean killing a range of people including a grandson of Augustus, who presumably had too much of a claim on being Emperor himself. She also did for one of Nero's aunties,]]>1062yesfull21s Century PillockYou've heard of Emperor Nero. We all have. We doubt it was good stuff you did hear. apart from him getting a decent tune out of a fiddle. Let's have a look at if he was as big a dickhead as he looked. Transcript – Emperor Nero We have got all the way to 60/61 AD in our history of Britain. Which means we have already had Nero as Emperor of Rome for about 6 years. Since he is an emperor everyone has heard of, if only for his excellent coffee franchises, we though he should get his own episode. And in this episode we shall be asking, was Nero really as mad as he looks? Was Nero even the worst person in his family? And how far is it acceptable to go in order to build a 30 ft statue of yourself?   Part 1 – Dead Relations   Nero was born in 37AD into quite the posh family. Augustus was his great great granddad and his mam, Agrippina was Caligula's sister. Which means he was the great nephew of Claudius. Then Claudius, who married Agrippina, adopted him as a son, which is how he got the job as Emperor. Although, as we mentioned way back in a past episode, it wasn't all that straight forward. His mam had to do a bit of intriguing that would make George RR Martin proud. Claudius already had a son, Britannicus, who was named after Claudius supposed conquering of Britain (we aren't going to let it go. Team Plautius). Britannicus was from a previous marriage, but now there was a new wife in town her son, Nero, was to be the heir, something which the new wife, Agrippina was very keen on. We have talked about Agrippina before, and the problem of how ambitious women in history are treated. However, if she was half as horrible as the Roman writers would have us believe she was proper horrible. Apparently Claudius and Agrippina had a falling out, and he started to sway towards putting Britannicus back as heir. Agrippina would not have been happy with that. Which is why, both at the time and now, Claudius dying, probably from being poisoned, is often blamed on Agrippina. Claudius, being an Emperor was not short of people who wanted to see him off, so maybe Agrippina had nothing to do with it. But either way it doesn’t sounds like she will have been upset about it. As an aside, we have mentioned his less than conventional family, but we should also point out someone else who had influence over in his formative years. He and Britannicus were both tutored by Seneca. Seneca was one of the blokes who we decided was an arsehole to the Iceni tribe to kick off Boudicca's rebellion. We just thought we should point out that one of his  role models was that dickhead. So we have Nero being made Emperor at the age of 16 in 54 AD. His reign lasted 13 years, but before we get to how it ended, we should look at what sort of Emperor he was. He doesn’t have the best reputation, but let's have a look if that's deserved or not. Nero's early reign seemed to be dominated by his mam. Which may have been a good thing, or may have been a bad thing. I mean pretty much every 16 year old boy is a dickhead, never mind a 16 year old boy who is also an emperor of the biggest empire in the known world. So a bit of adult guidance might have been a bonus, on the other hand Agrippina seems to have been a maniac. A big downside to Nero's reign was the higher than average volume of posh people getting murdered. For a start, to get the job in the first place his adopted dad got poisoned. It might be a bit harsh to blame Nero for this, but his mam Agrippina carried on getting stuck in on it even after Claudius was dead and buried. She seemed to be keen on making sure she was the one that Nero trusted to help run things. This mean killing a range of people including a grandson of Augustus, who presumably had too much of a claim on being Emperor himself. She also did for one of Nero's aunties,Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/9-boudica-the-one-where-everyone-looks-aTranscript – Boudica
Even in the bits of Britain, which had been under Roman control from when Claudius and Plautius turned up in 43 AD, some Britons weren't on board with the whole Britannia thing. One of the most famous of them was Boudicca. And she gave the Romans a proper black eye in a pretty sizable revolt.
Now before we go into who she was and what happened, let's address the whole name thing. We are just about old enough to have been told in school that the name was Boadicea. She has been called all sorts of names over the centuries, but apparently Boadicea, came from a mediaeval typo when the books of Tacitus were been transcribed. So really it should be Boudicca, although that could be bollocks as well. Part of the problem is that when it comes to important Celtic figures like Commius, Caractacus and Boudicca, all the sources are written by Romans and not Britons, or any other types of Celts. And much like the British Empire, the Roman Empire didn’t always have a lot of time for regional languages. They had a habit of hearing a name, trying it, deciding it was silly and making up their own version. As far as we are concerned we don’t usually like change, and would be tempted to stick with Boudicca like we learnt at school, but we think Boudicca sounds cooler. So we are going with that. The other odd bit about this whole story is we aren’t 100% sure exactly when it was. It was either 60 or 61 AD, possibly spread across the two. We are going to stick with 60 AD, because it doesn't much matter which it is, just don’t come running to us if you get it wrong in a pub quiz one day
In this episode we ask ourselves, how far can you annoy people before they kick off? How nice does a place have to be for you to stay in it even though it's on fire? And who’s more feminist us or ancient Celts?

Part 1 – Where did it all go wrong?
In our last British History episode, we left in 60 AD, with Suetonius having just given the Welsh folk on Anglesey, or Mona as they called it, a kicking. He was all set to wrap up there and head out into Wales proper to finish the job on the annoyingly resilient Wealth tribes. Then he got a message saying it was all going off back in the bit of Britannia which was meant to be safe. Boudicca had got herself together an army, had attacked and completely wrecked Camulodunum. Which is now Colchester. That was a massive fucker for Suetonius because it was a Roman built colony city, which was full of veteran Roman soldiers who were meant to be keeping an eye on the place while Suetonius was in Wales.
But before we go into all that, we should rewind a bit and have a look at who the hell Boudicca was and how she found herself in the ruins of ancient Colchester.
Boudicca was a queen of the Iceni tribe. The Iceni were a fair sized group living in the East of England, around Norfolk and a bit of Cambridgeshire. We say Boudicca was a queen, but it doesn't seem that she was originally a queen like Cartimandua was the queen of the Brigantes. She was married to the Iceni king, Prasutagus, so had married into it rather than been born to it. We have come across Prasutagus and his Iceni before. When the Romans turned up in 43 it sounds like the Iceni ‘voluntarily’ gave in to them. But in 47, the twatish governor Scapula decided to disarm them, so they kicked off and had themselves a bit of a revolt. It didn't last long, and it looks like that was probably when Prasutagus got the top job in the tribe. It doesn't seem likely that Scapula would have kept a king in place once he had revolted, so presumably, Prasutagus was the more pro-Roman candidate.
Despite this revolt, the Iceni were still a client kingdom, meaning they were pretty independent as long as they di...]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1162Mon, 28 May 2018 21:47:30 +000021s Century PillockThe Romans have been winding everyone up. Come 60 AD and Boudica was having none of it. She and her mates had a go at fucking things up. Transcript – Boudica Even in the bits of Britain, which had been under Roman control from when Claudius and...Transcript – Boudica
Even in the bits of Britain, which had been under Roman control from when Claudius and Plautius turned up in 43 AD, some Britons weren't on board with the whole Britannia thing. One of the most famous of them was Boudicca. And she gave the Romans a proper black eye in a pretty sizable revolt.
Now before we go into who she was and what happened, let's address the whole name thing. We are just about old enough to have been told in school that the name was Boadicea. She has been called all sorts of names over the centuries, but apparently Boadicea, came from a mediaeval typo when the books of Tacitus were been transcribed. So really it should be Boudicca, although that could be bollocks as well. Part of the problem is that when it comes to important Celtic figures like Commius, Caractacus and Boudicca, all the sources are written by Romans and not Britons, or any other types of Celts. And much like the British Empire, the Roman Empire didn’t always have a lot of time for regional languages. They had a habit of hearing a name, trying it, deciding it was silly and making up their own version. As far as we are concerned we don’t usually like change, and would be tempted to stick with Boudicca like we learnt at school, but we think Boudicca sounds cooler. So we are going with that. The other odd bit about this whole story is we aren’t 100% sure exactly when it was. It was either 60 or 61 AD, possibly spread across the two. We are going to stick with 60 AD, because it doesn't much matter which it is, just don’t come running to us if you get it wrong in a pub quiz one day
In this episode we ask ourselves, how far can you annoy people before they kick off? How nice does a place have to be for you to stay in it even though it's on fire? And who’s more feminist us or ancient Celts?

Part 1 – Where did it all go wrong?
In our last British History episode, we left in 60 AD, with Suetonius having just given the Welsh folk on Anglesey, or Mona as they called it, a kicking. He was all set to wrap up there and head out into Wales proper to finish the job on the annoyingly resilient Wealth tribes. Then he got a message saying it was all going off back in the bit of Britannia which was meant to be safe. Boudicca had got herself together an army, had attacked and completely wrecked Camulodunum. Which is now Colchester. That was a massive fucker for Suetonius because it was a Roman built colony city, which was full of veteran Roman soldiers who were meant to be keeping an eye on the place while Suetonius was in Wales.
But before we go into all that, we should rewind a bit and have a look at who the hell Boudicca was and how she found herself in the ruins of ancient Colchester.
Boudicca was a queen of the Iceni tribe. The Iceni were a fair sized group living in the East of England, around Norfolk and a bit of Cambridgeshire. We say Boudicca was a queen, but it doesn't seem that she was originally a queen like Cartimandua was the queen of the Brigantes. She was married to the Iceni king, Prasutagus, so had married into it rather than been born to it. We have come across Prasutagus and his Iceni before. When the Romans turned up in 43 it sounds like the Iceni ‘voluntarily’ gave in to them. But in 47, the twatish governor Scapula decided to disarm them, so they kicked off and had themselves a bit of a revolt. It didn't last long, and it looks like that was probably when Prasutagus got the top job in the tribe. It doesn't seem likely that Scapula would have kept a king in place once he had revolted, so presumably, Prasutagus was the more pro-Roman candidate.
Despite this revolt, the Iceni were still a client kingdom, meaning they were pretty independent as long as they di...]]>1368yesfull21s Century PillockThe Romans have been winding everyone up. Come 60 AD and Boudica was having none of it. She and her mates had a go at fucking things up. Transcript – Boudica Even in the bits of Britain, which had been under Roman control from when Claudius and Plautius turned up in 43 AD, some Britons weren't on board with the whole Britannia thing. One of the most famous of them was Boudicca. And she gave the Romans a proper black eye in a pretty sizable revolt. Now before we go into who she was and what happened, let's address the whole name thing. We are just about old enough to have been told in school that the name was Boadicea. She has been called all sorts of names over the centuries, but apparently Boadicea, came from a mediaeval typo when the books of Tacitus were been transcribed. So really it should be Boudicca, although that could be bollocks as well. Part of the problem is that when it comes to important Celtic figures like Commius, Caractacus and Boudicca, all the sources are written by Romans and not Britons, or any other types of Celts. And much like the British Empire, the Roman Empire didn’t always have a lot of time for regional languages. They had a habit of hearing a name, trying it, deciding it was silly and making up their own version. As far as we are concerned we don’t usually like change, and would be tempted to stick with Boudicca like we learnt at school, but we think Boudicca sounds cooler. So we are going with that. The other odd bit about this whole story is we aren’t 100% sure exactly when it was. It was either 60 or 61 AD, possibly spread across the two. We are going to stick with 60 AD, because it doesn't much matter which it is, just don’t come running to us if you get it wrong in a pub quiz one day In this episode we ask ourselves, how far can you annoy people before they kick off? How nice does a place have to be for you to stay in it even though it's on fire? And who’s more feminist us or ancient Celts? Part 1 – Where did it all go wrong? In our last British History episode, we left in 60 AD, with Suetonius having just given the Welsh folk on Anglesey, or Mona as they called it, a kicking. He was all set to wrap up there and head out into Wales proper to finish the job on the annoyingly resilient Wealth tribes. Then he got a message saying it was all going off back in the bit of Britannia which was meant to be safe. Boudicca had got herself together an army, had attacked and completely wrecked Camulodunum. Which is now Colchester. That was a massive fucker for Suetonius because it was a Roman built colony city, which was full of veteran Roman soldiers who were meant to be keeping an eye on the place while Suetonius was in Wales. But before we go into all that, we should rewind a bit and have a look at who the hell Boudicca was and how she found herself in the ruins of ancient Colchester. Boudicca was a queen of the Iceni tribe. The Iceni were a fair sized group living in the East of England, around Norfolk and a bit of Cambridgeshire. We say Boudicca was a queen, but it doesn't seem that she was originally a queen like Cartimandua was the queen of the Brigantes. She was married to the Iceni king, Prasutagus, so had married into it rather than been born to it. We have come across Prasutagus and his Iceni before. When the Romans turned up in 43 it sounds like the Iceni ‘voluntarily’ gave in to them. But in 47, the twatish governor Scapula decided to disarm them, so they kicked off and had themselves a bit of a revolt. It didn't last long, and it looks like that was probably when Prasutagus got the top job in the tribe. It doesn't seem likely that Scapula would have kept a king in place once he had revolted, so presumably, Prasutagus was the more pro-Roman candidate. Despite this revolt, the Iceni were still a client kingdom, meaning they were pretty independent as long as they di...Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/8-1-roman-religion-the-one-with-sad-time 
Transcript – Roman Religion
 
Religion was important to the Romans, but in a few ways, they were a bit more sensible with it than we are. So let's have a look at religion in Rome before Christianity turned up.
This week we ask the questions, what did the Romans believe? When will the Jewish people get a break? And who is in charge of doors?
 
Part one – Is anybody there?
 
First up, you need to know that the Romans were polytheistic, meaning they believed in loads of gods at the same time like Hindus do. Secondly, they were pretty adaptable and they tended to adopt other culture’s gods when they liked the look of them. When the Romans were picking up power in Italy, it was the Greeks who were big players around the Mediterranean. Which is presumably why a lot of Roman gods are Roman versions of Greek Gods with some added Latin flair.
For example, you will have heard of Poseidon and Neptune. They are the same sort of God of the sea, but Poseidon is Greek and Neptune is Roman. Same with the gods of love, Eros and Cupid.
So let's have a look at some of the mad Gods the Romans believed in. They were anthropomorphic, meaning they looked like humans. They were even paired up like married couples sometimes. Like Mars, the god of war and Venus, the goddess of fertility. Which must be where the men are from Mars and women are from Venus thing comes from.

They had gods for all sorts of things. There were the proper high end gods, like the most important one, the head god, Jupiter. He was the Roman equivalent of Zeus, and was the god of storms and lightning. There were the classic gods of dawns, the sun and the moon. All the sort of things you can see. Then they had more abstract gods, like Justitia, goddess of Justice. Or Honus, God of honour, and Disciplina, goddess of discipline.
The Romans also believed in the underworld, like the Greeks did. And a bit like Christianity’s hell. There were specific Gods for that. It was ran by a god called Dis, but he had mates like Mors, the personification of death.
Then you get plain weird god's. One of our favourite is Janus, which we are told is where January gets its name from. He was a god with two faces, so he was the god of beginnings and ends. Since he is often shown with a face on either side of a head that quite poetic, as in he was looking forwards and backwards. He was also the god of doors. It's good to know someone  is looking after the important things in life. He wasn't on his own though, when it comes to getting in and out of your house. There was Cardea, the Goddess of hinges. The gods all have their backstories. Her’s was that Janus was trying to get his end away with her, but she didn't fancy it, so he punished her by making her goddess of hinges. To be fair, it's more important than it sounds. Janus’ doors wouldn't be worth sod all without Cardea's hinges.
As we say, these gods and goddesses had back stories and personalities. Along with that came families of god's. The top god, Jupiter, is a good example. He was a sky god of thunder and lightning. For some reason he was associated with eagles, which is why it was a symbol of Rome. Which makes sense. All religions have their symbols, but the Romans really did go into detail on their gods. His dad was Saturn, who apparently was the head god in some sort of mythical pre Rome period. His mam was Ops, a fertility goddess who was worshipped by the Sabines, before the Romans turned up. Jupiter had brothers and sisters, like Ceres,]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1158Fri, 11 May 2018 00:38:31 +000021s Century PillockThe Romans loved a bit of religion. We are told they took it seriously, although if you see their gods, that's hard to believe. What they did take seriously was religions they didn't like. Ask the druids. Except you can't. The Romans wiped them out.  ... 
Transcript – Roman Religion
 
Religion was important to the Romans, but in a few ways, they were a bit more sensible with it than we are. So let's have a look at religion in Rome before Christianity turned up.
This week we ask the questions, what did the Romans believe? When will the Jewish people get a break? And who is in charge of doors?
 
Part one – Is anybody there?
 
First up, you need to know that the Romans were polytheistic, meaning they believed in loads of gods at the same time like Hindus do. Secondly, they were pretty adaptable and they tended to adopt other culture’s gods when they liked the look of them. When the Romans were picking up power in Italy, it was the Greeks who were big players around the Mediterranean. Which is presumably why a lot of Roman gods are Roman versions of Greek Gods with some added Latin flair.
For example, you will have heard of Poseidon and Neptune. They are the same sort of God of the sea, but Poseidon is Greek and Neptune is Roman. Same with the gods of love, Eros and Cupid.
So let's have a look at some of the mad Gods the Romans believed in. They were anthropomorphic, meaning they looked like humans. They were even paired up like married couples sometimes. Like Mars, the god of war and Venus, the goddess of fertility. Which must be where the men are from Mars and women are from Venus thing comes from.

They had gods for all sorts of things. There were the proper high end gods, like the most important one, the head god, Jupiter. He was the Roman equivalent of Zeus, and was the god of storms and lightning. There were the classic gods of dawns, the sun and the moon. All the sort of things you can see. Then they had more abstract gods, like Justitia, goddess of Justice. Or Honus, God of honour, and Disciplina, goddess of discipline.
The Romans also believed in the underworld, like the Greeks did. And a bit like Christianity’s hell. There were specific Gods for that. It was ran by a god called Dis, but he had mates like Mors, the personification of death.
Then you get plain weird god's. One of our favourite is Janus, which we are told is where January gets its name from. He was a god with two faces, so he was the god of beginnings and ends. Since he is often shown with a face on either side of a head that quite poetic, as in he was looking forwards and backwards. He was also the god of doors. It's good to know someone  is looking after the important things in life. He wasn't on his own though, when it comes to getting in and out of your house. There was Cardea, the Goddess of hinges. The gods all have their backstories. Her’s was that Janus was trying to get his end away with her, but she didn't fancy it, so he punished her by making her goddess of hinges. To be fair, it's more important than it sounds. Janus’ doors wouldn't be worth sod all without Cardea's hinges.
As we say, these gods and goddesses had back stories and personalities. Along with that came families of god's. The top god, Jupiter, is a good example. He was a sky god of thunder and lightning. For some reason he was associated with eagles, which is why it was a symbol of Rome. Which makes sense. All religions have their symbols, but the Romans really did go into detail on their gods. His dad was Saturn, who apparently was the head god in some sort of mythical pre Rome period. His mam was Ops, a fertility goddess who was worshipped by the Sabines, before the Romans turned up. Jupiter had brothers and sisters, like Ceres,]]>1173yesfull21s Century PillockThe Romans loved a bit of religion. We are told they took it seriously, although if you see their gods, that's hard to believe. What they did take seriously was religions they didn't like. Ask the druids. Except you can't. The Romans wiped them out.   Transcript – Roman Religion   Religion was important to the Romans, but in a few ways, they were a bit more sensible with it than we are. So let's have a look at religion in Rome before Christianity turned up. This week we ask the questions, what did the Romans believe? When will the Jewish people get a break? And who is in charge of doors?   Part one – Is anybody there?   First up, you need to know that the Romans were polytheistic, meaning they believed in loads of gods at the same time like Hindus do. Secondly, they were pretty adaptable and they tended to adopt other culture’s gods when they liked the look of them. When the Romans were picking up power in Italy, it was the Greeks who were big players around the Mediterranean. Which is presumably why a lot of Roman gods are Roman versions of Greek Gods with some added Latin flair. For example, you will have heard of Poseidon and Neptune. They are the same sort of God of the sea, but Poseidon is Greek and Neptune is Roman. Same with the gods of love, Eros and Cupid. So let's have a look at some of the mad Gods the Romans believed in. They were anthropomorphic, meaning they looked like humans. They were even paired up like married couples sometimes. Like Mars, the god of war and Venus, the goddess of fertility. Which must be where the men are from Mars and women are from Venus thing comes from. They had gods for all sorts of things. There were the proper high end gods, like the most important one, the head god, Jupiter. He was the Roman equivalent of Zeus, and was the god of storms and lightning. There were the classic gods of dawns, the sun and the moon. All the sort of things you can see. Then they had more abstract gods, like Justitia, goddess of Justice. Or Honus, God of honour, and Disciplina, goddess of discipline. The Romans also believed in the underworld, like the Greeks did. And a bit like Christianity’s hell. There were specific Gods for that. It was ran by a god called Dis, but he had mates like Mors, the personification of death. Then you get plain weird god's. One of our favourite is Janus, which we are told is where January gets its name from. He was a god with two faces, so he was the god of beginnings and ends. Since he is often shown with a face on either side of a head that quite poetic, as in he was looking forwards and backwards. He was also the god of doors. It's good to know someone  is looking after the important things in life. He wasn't on his own though, when it comes to getting in and out of your house. There was Cardea, the Goddess of hinges. The gods all have their backstories. Her’s was that Janus was trying to get his end away with her, but she didn't fancy it, so he punished her by making her goddess of hinges. To be fair, it's more important than it sounds. Janus’ doors wouldn't be worth sod all without Cardea's hinges. As we say, these gods and goddesses had back stories and personalities. Along with that came families of god's. The top god, Jupiter, is a good example. He was a sky god of thunder and lightning. For some reason he was associated with eagles, which is why it was a symbol of Rome. Which makes sense. All religions have their symbols, but the Romans really did go into detail on their gods. His dad was Saturn, who apparently was the head god in some sort of mythical pre Rome period. His mam was Ops, a fertility goddess who was worshipped by the Sabines, before the Romans turned up. Jupiter had brothers and sisters, like Ceres,Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/8-didius-suetonius-mad-druids-the-one-wiTranscript – Didius, Suetonius & Mad Druids
 
At this point in our history of Britain, the governor, Scapula is dead, the great Briton hope, Caracticus is living it up in Rome. So he wasn’t giving anyone much hope anymore. The Romans were not exactly in the best nick. They had a decent handle on South East England, and South West England seemed fairly calm. The rest of what the Romans wanted to call Britannia was a bit more up for grabs.
 
This episode we ask: Before Henry VIII, what was the worst divorce in the history of England? Why is it when you want an easy time at work, does it always kick off? And who gives a shit about Anglesey?
 
Part 1 – Calm down everyone
 
Since Scapula is dead now, The Roman Emperor, Claudius, needed to find himself a new governor of Britannia. It seems from his choice he wanted everyone to calm down a bit. And they did. Sort of. The new governor was a bloke called Aulus Didius Gallus. He got the job in 52 AD, and his thing was consolidation rather than swinging big at conquering new territory. The problem Didius had was that Scapula had really pissed people off, and they didn’t calm down just because he was dead. It will have taken a while for news of Scapula’s death to get back to Rome, then it will have taken a while to pick Didius as a replacement and get him over to Britain. In the meantime, we are told that a Roman legion took a proper beating from someone. Who handed out that beating or where it even happened isn’t made clear, but the clever money is on either a Welsh tribe or someone from the North.

 
We suggest the Welsh because they were the ones who had been kicking off the most in recent years. The Ordivices and Silures had been beaten but weren’t down and out yet. Didius obviously knew this, and he kept plenty of his legions over there and set up forts along the border, in places like Usk and Glocester, between territory he controlled and those angry Welsh tribes.
 
If Didius was hoping for a quiet life he would have been a bit disappointed. We guessed earlier that the beating the Roman legion got was either from a very angry Welsh tribe or maybe someone further north. Northerners getting involved seems like a decent guess, since it kicked off up there at about the time that Didius turned up. In a previous episode, we mentioned some trouble that Cartimandua, the ruler of the Brigante tribe was having with a faction of the tribe who weren’t up for Roman rule. The Brigante tribe were running things up in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the North East of England. Because there had been a bit of Briton on Briton fighting up there, Scapula had had to send soldiers up there to help Cartimandua beat the anti-Roman faction. Nine odd years later, with Didius on the scene, it happened again. Cartimandua’s husband, Venutius, was after taking on the role of head rebel after Caractacus had conformably retired to Rome. This didn't come from nowhere. It looks like Venutius had been keen for a while on taking over the Brigante throne from his wife. Cartimandua didn't take kindly to that and kidnapped and imprisoned members of Venutius’ family. What we are saying is that any divorce court would have two sides to hear.  
 
We imagine that the Romans were keen on keeping the Brigante ruled by someone they knew and trusted. As we mentioned, Didius' was all about keeping a lid on what the Romans already controlled. He did, however, have to get himself together to intervene in Brigante territory in this instance. For a start, it was very handy for Didius' that his whole northern border had friendly-ish folk on it, as a nice barrier between him and the other lunatic Britons furthe...]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1154Sun, 29 Apr 2018 22:25:26 +000021s Century PillockThe Romans are making progress, but it keeps going a bit wrong. From heroic sounding freedom fighters to tetchy divorces, the Britons are making it hard. Transcript – Didius, Suetonius & Mad Druids   At this point in our history of Britain, the...Transcript – Didius, Suetonius & Mad Druids
 
At this point in our history of Britain, the governor, Scapula is dead, the great Briton hope, Caracticus is living it up in Rome. So he wasn’t giving anyone much hope anymore. The Romans were not exactly in the best nick. They had a decent handle on South East England, and South West England seemed fairly calm. The rest of what the Romans wanted to call Britannia was a bit more up for grabs.
 
This episode we ask: Before Henry VIII, what was the worst divorce in the history of England? Why is it when you want an easy time at work, does it always kick off? And who gives a shit about Anglesey?
 
Part 1 – Calm down everyone
 
Since Scapula is dead now, The Roman Emperor, Claudius, needed to find himself a new governor of Britannia. It seems from his choice he wanted everyone to calm down a bit. And they did. Sort of. The new governor was a bloke called Aulus Didius Gallus. He got the job in 52 AD, and his thing was consolidation rather than swinging big at conquering new territory. The problem Didius had was that Scapula had really pissed people off, and they didn’t calm down just because he was dead. It will have taken a while for news of Scapula’s death to get back to Rome, then it will have taken a while to pick Didius as a replacement and get him over to Britain. In the meantime, we are told that a Roman legion took a proper beating from someone. Who handed out that beating or where it even happened isn’t made clear, but the clever money is on either a Welsh tribe or someone from the North.

 
We suggest the Welsh because they were the ones who had been kicking off the most in recent years. The Ordivices and Silures had been beaten but weren’t down and out yet. Didius obviously knew this, and he kept plenty of his legions over there and set up forts along the border, in places like Usk and Glocester, between territory he controlled and those angry Welsh tribes.
 
If Didius was hoping for a quiet life he would have been a bit disappointed. We guessed earlier that the beating the Roman legion got was either from a very angry Welsh tribe or maybe someone further north. Northerners getting involved seems like a decent guess, since it kicked off up there at about the time that Didius turned up. In a previous episode, we mentioned some trouble that Cartimandua, the ruler of the Brigante tribe was having with a faction of the tribe who weren’t up for Roman rule. The Brigante tribe were running things up in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the North East of England. Because there had been a bit of Briton on Briton fighting up there, Scapula had had to send soldiers up there to help Cartimandua beat the anti-Roman faction. Nine odd years later, with Didius on the scene, it happened again. Cartimandua’s husband, Venutius, was after taking on the role of head rebel after Caractacus had conformably retired to Rome. This didn't come from nowhere. It looks like Venutius had been keen for a while on taking over the Brigante throne from his wife. Cartimandua didn't take kindly to that and kidnapped and imprisoned members of Venutius’ family. What we are saying is that any divorce court would have two sides to hear.  
 
We imagine that the Romans were keen on keeping the Brigante ruled by someone they knew and trusted. As we mentioned, Didius' was all about keeping a lid on what the Romans already controlled. He did, however, have to get himself together to intervene in Brigante territory in this instance. For a start, it was very handy for Didius' that his whole northern border had friendly-ish folk on it, as a nice barrier between him and the other lunatic Britons furthe...]]>604yesfull21s Century PillockThe Romans are making progress, but it keeps going a bit wrong. From heroic sounding freedom fighters to tetchy divorces, the Britons are making it hard. Transcript – Didius, Suetonius & Mad Druids   At this point in our history of Britain, the governor, Scapula is dead, the great Briton hope, Caracticus is living it up in Rome. So he wasn’t giving anyone much hope anymore. The Romans were not exactly in the best nick. They had a decent handle on South East England, and South West England seemed fairly calm. The rest of what the Romans wanted to call Britannia was a bit more up for grabs.   This episode we ask: Before Henry VIII, what was the worst divorce in the history of England? Why is it when you want an easy time at work, does it always kick off? And who gives a shit about Anglesey?   Part 1 – Calm down everyone   Since Scapula is dead now, The Roman Emperor, Claudius, needed to find himself a new governor of Britannia. It seems from his choice he wanted everyone to calm down a bit. And they did. Sort of. The new governor was a bloke called Aulus Didius Gallus. He got the job in 52 AD, and his thing was consolidation rather than swinging big at conquering new territory. The problem Didius had was that Scapula had really pissed people off, and they didn’t calm down just because he was dead. It will have taken a while for news of Scapula’s death to get back to Rome, then it will have taken a while to pick Didius as a replacement and get him over to Britain. In the meantime, we are told that a Roman legion took a proper beating from someone. Who handed out that beating or where it even happened isn’t made clear, but the clever money is on either a Welsh tribe or someone from the North.   We suggest the Welsh because they were the ones who had been kicking off the most in recent years. The Ordivices and Silures had been beaten but weren’t down and out yet. Didius obviously knew this, and he kept plenty of his legions over there and set up forts along the border, in places like Usk and Glocester, between territory he controlled and those angry Welsh tribes.   If Didius was hoping for a quiet life he would have been a bit disappointed. We guessed earlier that the beating the Roman legion got was either from a very angry Welsh tribe or maybe someone further north. Northerners getting involved seems like a decent guess, since it kicked off up there at about the time that Didius turned up. In a previous episode, we mentioned some trouble that Cartimandua, the ruler of the Brigante tribe was having with a faction of the tribe who weren’t up for Roman rule. The Brigante tribe were running things up in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the North East of England. Because there had been a bit of Briton on Briton fighting up there, Scapula had had to send soldiers up there to help Cartimandua beat the anti-Roman faction. Nine odd years later, with Didius on the scene, it happened again. Cartimandua’s husband, Venutius, was after taking on the role of head rebel after Caractacus had conformably retired to Rome. This didn't come from nowhere. It looks like Venutius had been keen for a while on taking over the Brigante throne from his wife. Cartimandua didn't take kindly to that and kidnapped and imprisoned members of Venutius’ family. What we are saying is that any divorce court would have two sides to hear.     We imagine that the Romans were keen on keeping the Brigante ruled by someone they knew and trusted. As we mentioned, Didius' was all about keeping a lid on what the Romans already controlled. He did, however, have to get himself together to intervene in Brigante territory in this instance. For a start, it was very handy for Didius' that his whole northern border had friendly-ish folk on it, as a nice barrier between him and the other lunatic Britons furthe...Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/the-roman-army-the-one-with-the-point-ofTranscript – The Roman Army
 
We have been banging on about these Romans for weeks now. In particular we have been banging on about the Roman army, which isn't surprising since that's how Romans tended to introduce themselves to new regions, through the medium of many, many soldiers. The Roman army was a pretty impressive proposition, and we will go over some of the things that made them impressive, but it's worth remembering that they weren't invincible. Already, before this point in our history of Britain they had had some troubles militarily, even if they did tend to come out on top in the end. It took three wars to beat the Carthaginians, who were based over in North Africa, and it was touch and go a couple of times for the Romans. Particularly with Hannibal and his elephants. It also took the Romans ages to get around to taking over what is now Greece, having particular trouble with the Macedonians, who were still acting all Billy Big Balls after Alexander the Great. They also struggled a bit in the Middle East. By now they had the provinces of Syria and Judea, but they frequently came unstuck against the big empires in the East based around what is now Iran and Turkey, particularly the Parthians. Still, let's have a look at this impressive, but fallible Roman Army.    

 
This episode we ask ourselves who exactly made up the army which could dominate the known world, why would you bother joining up and what did the Roman do with all them funny looking foreigners who wanted to be involved.
 
Part One – General Info
Like we say every time we have a look at something which spans the whole of Roman history, things with the Romans does depend on when you are asking about. Since we have got to this point in our history of Britain we will focus on what the crack was with it in the 1st Century. Let's start with who made up the Roman army. Well the most famous bit is obviously the Legions. A legion was made up of about 5000 legionaries. A legionary was a Roman Citizen, kitted out as heavy infantry, and heavy infantry basically refers to how heavily armoured and armed a soldier is. Legionaries were citizens, but not necessarily always volunteers. Saying that by the the 1st Century it was mostly voluntary, but you did still get conscription when it was kicking off big style and there were worries that the Romans might lose. This boggles the mind. The Roman Legions numbered well over 100,000 men, which is a lot of people volunteering to be sent god knows where to fight Christ knows who. We will go over why they might volunteer in a bit, but to be honest we had just assumed it was mostly compulsory.
As we said a legion was made up of about 5000 men, it was split into smaller units called centuries (or Centuria, if you are feeling fancy) Clearly a century of men means 100 men, except it mostly meant 80 men, just to be annoying. Six of these centuries joined up to make a cohort, adding up to 480 men. For the mathematically minded among you, you may have spotted that 5000 doesn't evenly divide by 480. A legion had 10 cohorts, adding up to 4800. The other 120 were officers and a few bits of cavalry, mostly to carry messages about quickly. We are reading this out like its facts, but these number changed about a fair bit over time. For example, later on legions became smaller. There was also the introduction of a double sized Cohort. The 1st cohort in a legion was the most important and had 6 centuries of 160 men. To be honest, it's all a bit messy, and it looks like all the numbers changed fairly frequently just to annoy us a couple of centuries later,]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1149Mon, 23 Apr 2018 11:23:53 +000021s Century PillockRome was all about it's army. In fact the whole Empire feels like it was an army with some cities hanging off it. It made them terrible neighbors but a pretty successful civilisation. Who how was it organised? Transcript – The Roman Army   We have...Transcript – The Roman Army
 
We have been banging on about these Romans for weeks now. In particular we have been banging on about the Roman army, which isn't surprising since that's how Romans tended to introduce themselves to new regions, through the medium of many, many soldiers. The Roman army was a pretty impressive proposition, and we will go over some of the things that made them impressive, but it's worth remembering that they weren't invincible. Already, before this point in our history of Britain they had had some troubles militarily, even if they did tend to come out on top in the end. It took three wars to beat the Carthaginians, who were based over in North Africa, and it was touch and go a couple of times for the Romans. Particularly with Hannibal and his elephants. It also took the Romans ages to get around to taking over what is now Greece, having particular trouble with the Macedonians, who were still acting all Billy Big Balls after Alexander the Great. They also struggled a bit in the Middle East. By now they had the provinces of Syria and Judea, but they frequently came unstuck against the big empires in the East based around what is now Iran and Turkey, particularly the Parthians. Still, let's have a look at this impressive, but fallible Roman Army.    

 
This episode we ask ourselves who exactly made up the army which could dominate the known world, why would you bother joining up and what did the Roman do with all them funny looking foreigners who wanted to be involved.
 
Part One – General Info
Like we say every time we have a look at something which spans the whole of Roman history, things with the Romans does depend on when you are asking about. Since we have got to this point in our history of Britain we will focus on what the crack was with it in the 1st Century. Let's start with who made up the Roman army. Well the most famous bit is obviously the Legions. A legion was made up of about 5000 legionaries. A legionary was a Roman Citizen, kitted out as heavy infantry, and heavy infantry basically refers to how heavily armoured and armed a soldier is. Legionaries were citizens, but not necessarily always volunteers. Saying that by the the 1st Century it was mostly voluntary, but you did still get conscription when it was kicking off big style and there were worries that the Romans might lose. This boggles the mind. The Roman Legions numbered well over 100,000 men, which is a lot of people volunteering to be sent god knows where to fight Christ knows who. We will go over why they might volunteer in a bit, but to be honest we had just assumed it was mostly compulsory.
As we said a legion was made up of about 5000 men, it was split into smaller units called centuries (or Centuria, if you are feeling fancy) Clearly a century of men means 100 men, except it mostly meant 80 men, just to be annoying. Six of these centuries joined up to make a cohort, adding up to 480 men. For the mathematically minded among you, you may have spotted that 5000 doesn't evenly divide by 480. A legion had 10 cohorts, adding up to 4800. The other 120 were officers and a few bits of cavalry, mostly to carry messages about quickly. We are reading this out like its facts, but these number changed about a fair bit over time. For example, later on legions became smaller. There was also the introduction of a double sized Cohort. The 1st cohort in a legion was the most important and had 6 centuries of 160 men. To be honest, it's all a bit messy, and it looks like all the numbers changed fairly frequently just to annoy us a couple of centuries later,]]>717yesfull21s Century PillockRome was all about it's army. In fact the whole Empire feels like it was an army with some cities hanging off it. It made them terrible neighbors but a pretty successful civilisation. Who how was it organised? Transcript – The Roman Army   We have been banging on about these Romans for weeks now. In particular we have been banging on about the Roman army, which isn't surprising since that's how Romans tended to introduce themselves to new regions, through the medium of many, many soldiers. The Roman army was a pretty impressive proposition, and we will go over some of the things that made them impressive, but it's worth remembering that they weren't invincible. Already, before this point in our history of Britain they had had some troubles militarily, even if they did tend to come out on top in the end. It took three wars to beat the Carthaginians, who were based over in North Africa, and it was touch and go a couple of times for the Romans. Particularly with Hannibal and his elephants. It also took the Romans ages to get around to taking over what is now Greece, having particular trouble with the Macedonians, who were still acting all Billy Big Balls after Alexander the Great. They also struggled a bit in the Middle East. By now they had the provinces of Syria and Judea, but they frequently came unstuck against the big empires in the East based around what is now Iran and Turkey, particularly the Parthians. Still, let's have a look at this impressive, but fallible Roman Army.       This episode we ask ourselves who exactly made up the army which could dominate the known world, why would you bother joining up and what did the Roman do with all them funny looking foreigners who wanted to be involved.   Part One – General Info Like we say every time we have a look at something which spans the whole of Roman history, things with the Romans does depend on when you are asking about. Since we have got to this point in our history of Britain we will focus on what the crack was with it in the 1st Century. Let's start with who made up the Roman army. Well the most famous bit is obviously the Legions. A legion was made up of about 5000 legionaries. A legionary was a Roman Citizen, kitted out as heavy infantry, and heavy infantry basically refers to how heavily armoured and armed a soldier is. Legionaries were citizens, but not necessarily always volunteers. Saying that by the the 1st Century it was mostly voluntary, but you did still get conscription when it was kicking off big style and there were worries that the Romans might lose. This boggles the mind. The Roman Legions numbered well over 100,000 men, which is a lot of people volunteering to be sent god knows where to fight Christ knows who. We will go over why they might volunteer in a bit, but to be honest we had just assumed it was mostly compulsory. As we said a legion was made up of about 5000 men, it was split into smaller units called centuries (or Centuria, if you are feeling fancy) Clearly a century of men means 100 men, except it mostly meant 80 men, just to be annoying. Six of these centuries joined up to make a cohort, adding up to 480 men. For the mathematically minded among you, you may have spotted that 5000 doesn't evenly divide by 480. A legion had 10 cohorts, adding up to 4800. The other 120 were officers and a few bits of cavalry, mostly to carry messages about quickly. We are reading this out like its facts, but these number changed about a fair bit over time. For example, later on legions became smaller. There was also the introduction of a double sized Cohort. The 1st cohort in a legion was the most important and had 6 centuries of 160 men. To be honest, it's all a bit messy, and it looks like all the numbers changed fairly frequently just to annoy us a couple of centuries later,Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/7-scapula-caractacus-the-one-with-a-luckTranscript- Caractacus & Scapula
 
In our last visit to Roman Britain we finally got around to the Romans establishing themselves on our little island in 43 AD. As little as Britain may be, Claudius didn’t have proper control of much of it. We say Claudius, because he was the emperor, and he had claimed the invasion as a win for himself. Really it was his general Plautius who did all the work, but as anyone with a boss knows, that's the way it goes. Claudius was in Britain for a grand total of 16 days, after that he buggered off and left Plautius to get on with things. Things being the subjugation of more Britons.
This week we are going to ask the questions; who could replace undervalued Plautius? What could go wrong annoying every Celt within 200 miles? And begging for your life is undignified, but can it work?

Part One – I'm starting to think we aren't welcome here.
Plautius attempts at conquering Britannia aren't, as ever all that clear, but luckily for us he and the governors coming after him did it all in stages, so we can piece bits of it together.
The first stage was keeping control over what he already had. We know, from Dio’s writings that even before Claudius left the Britons had their weapons confiscated. Saying that, we know that it wasn’t all the tribes who got disarmed, and we will go over how we know that in a bit. But it’s safe to assume that at the very least the Catevaulani were disarmed, presumably along with any other tribe who gave Plautius undue grief during the initial invasion.
The area that was covered by the Romans is, like most stuff we bang on about, not clear. However there is a handy line we can draw to show how far the got in terms of proper control in the early years. The only problem with that is that it's bollocks. But while It's not exactly right, but it is very handy so we will start there. The line was a road called the Foss Way, which ran from the South West, in Devon, towards the North East around the Humber. It took in Exeter, Leicester and Lincoln.
The clearest picture we get from this early Roman consolidation is the activity of one of the celebrities of the invasion, the future Emperor Vespasian. The sources says he taught thirty battles and took 20 settlements. Maybe he did, but given he was later an emperor, you take that with whatever sized pinch of salt you fancy.especially considering the source was a bit vague on where exactly these battles and settlements were. It does mention the Isle of White as one of the places he fought and his legion ended up in Exeter, in Devon. So if you remember our British Tribes episode, he probably had a crack at the Durotriges and Dumnonii tribes.
We know less famous Romans also headed north since they established forts in Leicestershire and Lincoln. Which are also on the Foss Way. The problem with the idea of the Foss Way as a border, where the Romans paused for a bit, is that that we don't know exact dates of all of this, and there is evidence of Romans beyond this line around that time. So who knows how far they got when.
Plautius was in charge until 47 AD, so he had three years and he seemed to do a half decent job of controlling a big chunk of England before he was recalled to Rome. He was replaced as governor by a bloke called Ostorius Scapula. We only have a few sources for these governors and how they ran things, so we are at the mercy of the opinion of a few men, and what they chose to write down. The impression we get from them is that Plautius was competent and got stuff done. He successfully invaded after all and spent three years in a presumably hostile territory without any major disasters. Or at least major enough that they were bothered to be recorded.]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1134Tue, 03 Apr 2018 12:29:20 +000021s Century PillockThe Romans have landed and they are here to stay. For a bit. So how did they get on cracking down on the Britons in the early years? Transcript- Caractacus & Scapula   In our last visit to Roman Britain we finally got around to the Romans establishing...Transcript- Caractacus & Scapula
 
In our last visit to Roman Britain we finally got around to the Romans establishing themselves on our little island in 43 AD. As little as Britain may be, Claudius didn’t have proper control of much of it. We say Claudius, because he was the emperor, and he had claimed the invasion as a win for himself. Really it was his general Plautius who did all the work, but as anyone with a boss knows, that's the way it goes. Claudius was in Britain for a grand total of 16 days, after that he buggered off and left Plautius to get on with things. Things being the subjugation of more Britons.
This week we are going to ask the questions; who could replace undervalued Plautius? What could go wrong annoying every Celt within 200 miles? And begging for your life is undignified, but can it work?

Part One – I'm starting to think we aren't welcome here.
Plautius attempts at conquering Britannia aren't, as ever all that clear, but luckily for us he and the governors coming after him did it all in stages, so we can piece bits of it together.
The first stage was keeping control over what he already had. We know, from Dio’s writings that even before Claudius left the Britons had their weapons confiscated. Saying that, we know that it wasn’t all the tribes who got disarmed, and we will go over how we know that in a bit. But it’s safe to assume that at the very least the Catevaulani were disarmed, presumably along with any other tribe who gave Plautius undue grief during the initial invasion.
The area that was covered by the Romans is, like most stuff we bang on about, not clear. However there is a handy line we can draw to show how far the got in terms of proper control in the early years. The only problem with that is that it's bollocks. But while It's not exactly right, but it is very handy so we will start there. The line was a road called the Foss Way, which ran from the South West, in Devon, towards the North East around the Humber. It took in Exeter, Leicester and Lincoln.
The clearest picture we get from this early Roman consolidation is the activity of one of the celebrities of the invasion, the future Emperor Vespasian. The sources says he taught thirty battles and took 20 settlements. Maybe he did, but given he was later an emperor, you take that with whatever sized pinch of salt you fancy.especially considering the source was a bit vague on where exactly these battles and settlements were. It does mention the Isle of White as one of the places he fought and his legion ended up in Exeter, in Devon. So if you remember our British Tribes episode, he probably had a crack at the Durotriges and Dumnonii tribes.
We know less famous Romans also headed north since they established forts in Leicestershire and Lincoln. Which are also on the Foss Way. The problem with the idea of the Foss Way as a border, where the Romans paused for a bit, is that that we don't know exact dates of all of this, and there is evidence of Romans beyond this line around that time. So who knows how far they got when.
Plautius was in charge until 47 AD, so he had three years and he seemed to do a half decent job of controlling a big chunk of England before he was recalled to Rome. He was replaced as governor by a bloke called Ostorius Scapula. We only have a few sources for these governors and how they ran things, so we are at the mercy of the opinion of a few men, and what they chose to write down. The impression we get from them is that Plautius was competent and got stuff done. He successfully invaded after all and spent three years in a presumably hostile territory without any major disasters. Or at least major enough that they were bothered to be recorded.]]>853yesfull21s Century PillockThe Romans have landed and they are here to stay. For a bit. So how did they get on cracking down on the Britons in the early years? Transcript- Caractacus & Scapula   In our last visit to Roman Britain we finally got around to the Romans establishing themselves on our little island in 43 AD. As little as Britain may be, Claudius didn’t have proper control of much of it. We say Claudius, because he was the emperor, and he had claimed the invasion as a win for himself. Really it was his general Plautius who did all the work, but as anyone with a boss knows, that's the way it goes. Claudius was in Britain for a grand total of 16 days, after that he buggered off and left Plautius to get on with things. Things being the subjugation of more Britons. This week we are going to ask the questions; who could replace undervalued Plautius? What could go wrong annoying every Celt within 200 miles? And begging for your life is undignified, but can it work? Part One – I'm starting to think we aren't welcome here. Plautius attempts at conquering Britannia aren't, as ever all that clear, but luckily for us he and the governors coming after him did it all in stages, so we can piece bits of it together. The first stage was keeping control over what he already had. We know, from Dio’s writings that even before Claudius left the Britons had their weapons confiscated. Saying that, we know that it wasn’t all the tribes who got disarmed, and we will go over how we know that in a bit. But it’s safe to assume that at the very least the Catevaulani were disarmed, presumably along with any other tribe who gave Plautius undue grief during the initial invasion. The area that was covered by the Romans is, like most stuff we bang on about, not clear. However there is a handy line we can draw to show how far the got in terms of proper control in the early years. The only problem with that is that it's bollocks. But while It's not exactly right, but it is very handy so we will start there. The line was a road called the Foss Way, which ran from the South West, in Devon, towards the North East around the Humber. It took in Exeter, Leicester and Lincoln. The clearest picture we get from this early Roman consolidation is the activity of one of the celebrities of the invasion, the future Emperor Vespasian. The sources says he taught thirty battles and took 20 settlements. Maybe he did, but given he was later an emperor, you take that with whatever sized pinch of salt you fancy.especially considering the source was a bit vague on where exactly these battles and settlements were. It does mention the Isle of White as one of the places he fought and his legion ended up in Exeter, in Devon. So if you remember our British Tribes episode, he probably had a crack at the Durotriges and Dumnonii tribes. We know less famous Romans also headed north since they established forts in Leicestershire and Lincoln. Which are also on the Foss Way. The problem with the idea of the Foss Way as a border, where the Romans paused for a bit, is that that we don't know exact dates of all of this, and there is evidence of Romans beyond this line around that time. So who knows how far they got when. Plautius was in charge until 47 AD, so he had three years and he seemed to do a half decent job of controlling a big chunk of England before he was recalled to Rome. He was replaced as governor by a bloke called Ostorius Scapula. We only have a few sources for these governors and how they ran things, so we are at the mercy of the opinion of a few men, and what they chose to write down. The impression we get from them is that Plautius was competent and got stuff done. He successfully invaded after all and spent three years in a presumably hostile territory without any major disasters. Or at least major enough that they were bothered to be recorded.Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/6-1-roman-citizenship-the-one-with-legal 
Transcript- Roman Citizens and Other Scrotes
In our last episode we set up who the Tribes of Britain were. We thought it was about time we talked about some folk other than Roman Emperors. But what about the people already within the Roman Empire? What were they up to? Well it was a massive place, so loads of stuff presumably. Instead of re-going though every group in the Empire, because that sounds hard, we are going to look at Roman Citizenship.
This was a big deal, and if you think the subject of EU citizenship, or the rights of immigrants moving to Britain, is a bit too fraught, you haven't seen anything yet.
Part 1 – No Friends, Countrymen and Official Romans
In the early days of the Roman Republic, Roman Citizenship was for people from Rome. No curveball there, just says what you see. So what exactly did Roman Citizenship get you?
Well, considering Roman Citizenship was a concept spanning a few centuries, it does depend on when you are talking about, but generally, it got you quite a lot of good stuff. You could get involved in Roman politics, for example, citizens could vote in the assemblies. These assemblies, particularly during the Republic had a decent role in establishing new laws and electing officials. From as early as the 3rd Century BC, even the plebeians could vote. So it wasn’t just the posh upper-class patricians, of established families, voting. Plebeian isn’t just a slur used by Tory ministers, it was an official Roman class and just meant Commoner, while Patricians were from aristocratic families. Even with the plebs getting involved it wasn’t quite the egalitarian utopia that it sounds. People in the assemblies were banded together by their wealth, meaning they could reduce the impact of the vote of the poorer people, by weighing it in favour of the richer bands. Citizens were also eligible to run for office. Again, some of the roles, such as senators, did have restrictions on who could do the job, not least there was the fact that it wasn't paid, so the poorer folk wouldn't have been getting involved even if they weren't. To balance it out a bit there were some Plebeian only jobs, to make sure that the more everyday folk got a say.
There were more societal benefits, for example, you were allowed to get married and become the head of a household. If both the mam and the dad were citizens, it also meant any kids they had were Roman Citizens.
There were also the all-important money benefits, like owning property and making legal contracts, as well as having to pay some taxes, but not others. In the Roman Republic and the earlier Empire, it also meant you were required to fulfil a certain level of military service. Which, was probably a bit of a downside for most folk. Especially the more indoorsy among them, something we can relate to.
The legal benefits were also nice. You had access to courts to sue folk if they stitched you up. You weren't allowed to be tortured, which is always a bonus. Handily, it also meant weren't going to be executed and could instead opt for exile. Well, that’s not quite true, you could still be executed for treason even if you were a citizen. Something which happened fairly frequently, as you have already seen Tiberius and Caligula, in particularly, enjoyed that. Even Claudius, who we tried to make seem nicer than most, did more than a reasonable amount of execution of his posher enemies. On the bright side, citizens weren’t allowed to be executed by crucifixion. Although we are not sure that is much of a benefit. It would be a bit like having a rule about how clean the blade on the guillotine should be.]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1122Sun, 11 Mar 2018 23:41:27 +000021s Century PillockRoman citizenship was more contentious than European Union citizenship. We cover what it was, who got it and what it got you. It was pretty useful, if only as a handy bribe to the scroty regions of the Roman Empire. Like Britannia.   Transcript- Roman... 
Transcript- Roman Citizens and Other Scrotes
In our last episode we set up who the Tribes of Britain were. We thought it was about time we talked about some folk other than Roman Emperors. But what about the people already within the Roman Empire? What were they up to? Well it was a massive place, so loads of stuff presumably. Instead of re-going though every group in the Empire, because that sounds hard, we are going to look at Roman Citizenship.
This was a big deal, and if you think the subject of EU citizenship, or the rights of immigrants moving to Britain, is a bit too fraught, you haven't seen anything yet.
Part 1 – No Friends, Countrymen and Official Romans
In the early days of the Roman Republic, Roman Citizenship was for people from Rome. No curveball there, just says what you see. So what exactly did Roman Citizenship get you?
Well, considering Roman Citizenship was a concept spanning a few centuries, it does depend on when you are talking about, but generally, it got you quite a lot of good stuff. You could get involved in Roman politics, for example, citizens could vote in the assemblies. These assemblies, particularly during the Republic had a decent role in establishing new laws and electing officials. From as early as the 3rd Century BC, even the plebeians could vote. So it wasn’t just the posh upper-class patricians, of established families, voting. Plebeian isn’t just a slur used by Tory ministers, it was an official Roman class and just meant Commoner, while Patricians were from aristocratic families. Even with the plebs getting involved it wasn’t quite the egalitarian utopia that it sounds. People in the assemblies were banded together by their wealth, meaning they could reduce the impact of the vote of the poorer people, by weighing it in favour of the richer bands. Citizens were also eligible to run for office. Again, some of the roles, such as senators, did have restrictions on who could do the job, not least there was the fact that it wasn't paid, so the poorer folk wouldn't have been getting involved even if they weren't. To balance it out a bit there were some Plebeian only jobs, to make sure that the more everyday folk got a say.
There were more societal benefits, for example, you were allowed to get married and become the head of a household. If both the mam and the dad were citizens, it also meant any kids they had were Roman Citizens.
There were also the all-important money benefits, like owning property and making legal contracts, as well as having to pay some taxes, but not others. In the Roman Republic and the earlier Empire, it also meant you were required to fulfil a certain level of military service. Which, was probably a bit of a downside for most folk. Especially the more indoorsy among them, something we can relate to.
The legal benefits were also nice. You had access to courts to sue folk if they stitched you up. You weren't allowed to be tortured, which is always a bonus. Handily, it also meant weren't going to be executed and could instead opt for exile. Well, that’s not quite true, you could still be executed for treason even if you were a citizen. Something which happened fairly frequently, as you have already seen Tiberius and Caligula, in particularly, enjoyed that. Even Claudius, who we tried to make seem nicer than most, did more than a reasonable amount of execution of his posher enemies. On the bright side, citizens weren’t allowed to be executed by crucifixion. Although we are not sure that is much of a benefit. It would be a bit like having a rule about how clean the blade on the guillotine should be.]]>771yesfull21s Century PillockRoman citizenship was more contentious than European Union citizenship. We cover what it was, who got it and what it got you. It was pretty useful, if only as a handy bribe to the scroty regions of the Roman Empire. Like Britannia.   Transcript- Roman Citizens and Other Scrotes In our last episode we set up who the Tribes of Britain were. We thought it was about time we talked about some folk other than Roman Emperors. But what about the people already within the Roman Empire? What were they up to? Well it was a massive place, so loads of stuff presumably. Instead of re-going though every group in the Empire, because that sounds hard, we are going to look at Roman Citizenship. This was a big deal, and if you think the subject of EU citizenship, or the rights of immigrants moving to Britain, is a bit too fraught, you haven't seen anything yet. Part 1 – No Friends, Countrymen and Official Romans In the early days of the Roman Republic, Roman Citizenship was for people from Rome. No curveball there, just says what you see. So what exactly did Roman Citizenship get you? Well, considering Roman Citizenship was a concept spanning a few centuries, it does depend on when you are talking about, but generally, it got you quite a lot of good stuff. You could get involved in Roman politics, for example, citizens could vote in the assemblies. These assemblies, particularly during the Republic had a decent role in establishing new laws and electing officials. From as early as the 3rd Century BC, even the plebeians could vote. So it wasn’t just the posh upper-class patricians, of established families, voting. Plebeian isn’t just a slur used by Tory ministers, it was an official Roman class and just meant Commoner, while Patricians were from aristocratic families. Even with the plebs getting involved it wasn’t quite the egalitarian utopia that it sounds. People in the assemblies were banded together by their wealth, meaning they could reduce the impact of the vote of the poorer people, by weighing it in favour of the richer bands. Citizens were also eligible to run for office. Again, some of the roles, such as senators, did have restrictions on who could do the job, not least there was the fact that it wasn't paid, so the poorer folk wouldn't have been getting involved even if they weren't. To balance it out a bit there were some Plebeian only jobs, to make sure that the more everyday folk got a say. There were more societal benefits, for example, you were allowed to get married and become the head of a household. If both the mam and the dad were citizens, it also meant any kids they had were Roman Citizens. There were also the all-important money benefits, like owning property and making legal contracts, as well as having to pay some taxes, but not others. In the Roman Republic and the earlier Empire, it also meant you were required to fulfil a certain level of military service. Which, was probably a bit of a downside for most folk. Especially the more indoorsy among them, something we can relate to. The legal benefits were also nice. You had access to courts to sue folk if they stitched you up. You weren't allowed to be tortured, which is always a bonus. Handily, it also meant weren't going to be executed and could instead opt for exile. Well, that’s not quite true, you could still be executed for treason even if you were a citizen. Something which happened fairly frequently, as you have already seen Tiberius and Caligula, in particularly, enjoyed that. Even Claudius, who we tried to make seem nicer than most, did more than a reasonable amount of execution of his posher enemies. On the bright side, citizens weren’t allowed to be executed by crucifixion. Although we are not sure that is much of a benefit. It would be a bit like having a rule about how clean the blade on the guillotine should be.Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/the-tribes-of-britain-the-one-with-the-pTranscript – The Tribes Of Britain. The One With The Pre- Roman Geography
We finally have Roman Britain. They are here and they are here to stay. For a bit anyway. Hopefully, that won’t come to a surprise to anyone who was under the impression that Britain was still part of the Roman Empire. As we have mentioned before it wasn’t as simple as that., you can’t just turn up and declared a province, it’s not like the Romans were involved into the day to day running of the people in Scotland.
Before we go diving back into how the Romans went about getting stuck into the rest of Britain, we should pause and go over what the state of play was around 44 AD. We are quite aware that our history of Britain has so far mostly ignored the British. Which is impressive if you think about it.
This episode we are going to ask the questions, Who was around before the Romans? What does a croissant taste like with gravy on it? And have the Scottish always been like that?

The Britons were Celts, like a lot of Europe. They spoke a version of Celtic called insular Celtic, as opposed to continental Celtic. It’s interesting to know the people of Britain have never had any of ladeda European shit. Except as far as we can tell the whole Celtic thing is a bit of a red herring for modern folk. Yes, there was a common language, but a language doesn’t make a culture. Austrians are not the same as Germans. Americans speak what passes for English, but we are no Americans.
As we have mentioned before Britain was split into tribes, and they did have different approaches to life. As with everything so far, we are basically relying on what's left of the Roman sources and how proper historians have interpreted them over the years. We found quite a few conflicting bits of info, and it gave us a bit of a headache. We have narrowed it down to 26 tribes which were around in Britain when the Romans found an interest in the place, and here is a whistle-stop tour, with where they were and any interesting bits of info we could find.
We can start around the South East where the first pitched up, in modern Kent, which is the Southeastern tip of England. Knocking about here were the Cantium aka the Cantiaci. Julius Caesar came across this lot, and had some fairly nice words to say about them, which can be translated as: “Of all these by far the most civilised are those who dwell in Kent – a district which is entirely maritime (which district is all maritime) – and do not differ much from Gallic custom.”
They popped up in Julius’ second invasion when four kings of the Cantiaci tried to attack the Romans ships while Julius was busy further north. Julius even lists the four kings as Segovax, Carvilius, Taximagulus and Cingetorix. Which, we like because it's still cool to us that we have the names of some Celtic folk living in Britain 2000 odd years ago.  It also shows how it’s even more complicated than just Britain being split into different tribes. This one tribe had four ‘kings’ or chieftains. Were they all equal kings of different groups within the tribe? Was one of the head king, with some sub-kings? We couldn’t find any answers on that, so it looks like there isn’t a record of it. Don’t worry though. This is going to get vaguer.
To the west of Kent were a group called the Atrebates. These were a strange lot. We have come across a couple of notable members of the Atrebates already. The most recent was Verica, the bloke who got deposed as a king and went crying to the Romans to literally ask for an invasion of Britain. We bet he had no friends in school. The other Atrebates VIP we know was Verica’s dad,]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1116Sat, 24 Feb 2018 16:04:00 +000021s Century PillockPre Roman Britain is a bit like English football before the Premier League. Loads must have happened, but nobody talks about it. To be fair, for pre-Roman Britain, that's mostly because we don't know all that much about it. So here's what 21st Century...Transcript – The Tribes Of Britain. The One With The Pre- Roman Geography
We finally have Roman Britain. They are here and they are here to stay. For a bit anyway. Hopefully, that won’t come to a surprise to anyone who was under the impression that Britain was still part of the Roman Empire. As we have mentioned before it wasn’t as simple as that., you can’t just turn up and declared a province, it’s not like the Romans were involved into the day to day running of the people in Scotland.
Before we go diving back into how the Romans went about getting stuck into the rest of Britain, we should pause and go over what the state of play was around 44 AD. We are quite aware that our history of Britain has so far mostly ignored the British. Which is impressive if you think about it.
This episode we are going to ask the questions, Who was around before the Romans? What does a croissant taste like with gravy on it? And have the Scottish always been like that?

The Britons were Celts, like a lot of Europe. They spoke a version of Celtic called insular Celtic, as opposed to continental Celtic. It’s interesting to know the people of Britain have never had any of ladeda European shit. Except as far as we can tell the whole Celtic thing is a bit of a red herring for modern folk. Yes, there was a common language, but a language doesn’t make a culture. Austrians are not the same as Germans. Americans speak what passes for English, but we are no Americans.
As we have mentioned before Britain was split into tribes, and they did have different approaches to life. As with everything so far, we are basically relying on what's left of the Roman sources and how proper historians have interpreted them over the years. We found quite a few conflicting bits of info, and it gave us a bit of a headache. We have narrowed it down to 26 tribes which were around in Britain when the Romans found an interest in the place, and here is a whistle-stop tour, with where they were and any interesting bits of info we could find.
We can start around the South East where the first pitched up, in modern Kent, which is the Southeastern tip of England. Knocking about here were the Cantium aka the Cantiaci. Julius Caesar came across this lot, and had some fairly nice words to say about them, which can be translated as: “Of all these by far the most civilised are those who dwell in Kent – a district which is entirely maritime (which district is all maritime) – and do not differ much from Gallic custom.”
They popped up in Julius’ second invasion when four kings of the Cantiaci tried to attack the Romans ships while Julius was busy further north. Julius even lists the four kings as Segovax, Carvilius, Taximagulus and Cingetorix. Which, we like because it's still cool to us that we have the names of some Celtic folk living in Britain 2000 odd years ago.  It also shows how it’s even more complicated than just Britain being split into different tribes. This one tribe had four ‘kings’ or chieftains. Were they all equal kings of different groups within the tribe? Was one of the head king, with some sub-kings? We couldn’t find any answers on that, so it looks like there isn’t a record of it. Don’t worry though. This is going to get vaguer.
To the west of Kent were a group called the Atrebates. These were a strange lot. We have come across a couple of notable members of the Atrebates already. The most recent was Verica, the bloke who got deposed as a king and went crying to the Romans to literally ask for an invasion of Britain. We bet he had no friends in school. The other Atrebates VIP we know was Verica’s dad,]]>839yesfull21s Century PillockPre Roman Britain is a bit like English football before the Premier League. Loads must have happened, but nobody talks about it. To be fair, for pre-Roman Britain, that's mostly because we don't know all that much about it. So here's what 21st Century Pillock could find. Transcript – The Tribes Of Britain. The One With The Pre- Roman Geography We finally have Roman Britain. They are here and they are here to stay. For a bit anyway. Hopefully, that won’t come to a surprise to anyone who was under the impression that Britain was still part of the Roman Empire. As we have mentioned before it wasn’t as simple as that., you can’t just turn up and declared a province, it’s not like the Romans were involved into the day to day running of the people in Scotland. Before we go diving back into how the Romans went about getting stuck into the rest of Britain, we should pause and go over what the state of play was around 44 AD. We are quite aware that our history of Britain has so far mostly ignored the British. Which is impressive if you think about it. This episode we are going to ask the questions, Who was around before the Romans? What does a croissant taste like with gravy on it? And have the Scottish always been like that? The Britons were Celts, like a lot of Europe. They spoke a version of Celtic called insular Celtic, as opposed to continental Celtic. It’s interesting to know the people of Britain have never had any of ladeda European shit. Except as far as we can tell the whole Celtic thing is a bit of a red herring for modern folk. Yes, there was a common language, but a language doesn’t make a culture. Austrians are not the same as Germans. Americans speak what passes for English, but we are no Americans. As we have mentioned before Britain was split into tribes, and they did have different approaches to life. As with everything so far, we are basically relying on what's left of the Roman sources and how proper historians have interpreted them over the years. We found quite a few conflicting bits of info, and it gave us a bit of a headache. We have narrowed it down to 26 tribes which were around in Britain when the Romans found an interest in the place, and here is a whistle-stop tour, with where they were and any interesting bits of info we could find. We can start around the South East where the first pitched up, in modern Kent, which is the Southeastern tip of England. Knocking about here were the Cantium aka the Cantiaci. Julius Caesar came across this lot, and had some fairly nice words to say about them, which can be translated as: “Of all these by far the most civilised are those who dwell in Kent – a district which is entirely maritime (which district is all maritime) – and do not differ much from Gallic custom.” They popped up in Julius’ second invasion when four kings of the Cantiaci tried to attack the Romans ships while Julius was busy further north. Julius even lists the four kings as Segovax, Carvilius, Taximagulus and Cingetorix. Which, we like because it's still cool to us that we have the names of some Celtic folk living in Britain 2000 odd years ago.  It also shows how it’s even more complicated than just Britain being split into different tribes. This one tribe had four ‘kings’ or chieftains. Were they all equal kings of different groups within the tribe? Was one of the head king, with some sub-kings? We couldn’t find any answers on that, so it looks like there isn’t a record of it. Don’t worry though. This is going to get vaguer. To the west of Kent were a group called the Atrebates. These were a strange lot. We have come across a couple of notable members of the Atrebates already. The most recent was Verica, the bloke who got deposed as a king and went crying to the Romans to literally ask for an invasion of Britain. We bet he had no friends in school. The other Atrebates VIP we know was Verica’s dad,Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/5-1-claudius-as-roman-emperor-the-one-wi 
Transcript – Claudius As Roman Emperor. The One With The Breath Of Fresh Air
 
Our last history of Britain episode we went over Claudius and what he wanted everyone to think was his invasion of Britain.
In this companion episode we ask ourselves can a Roman Emperor ever be anything other than a nightmare for the Romans? What sort of bloke gets married four times? And what’s wrong with the alphabet?
 
Part One – The Expansion
We know that Claudius came to become Emperor in slightly shady circumstances in 41 AD, and we know he sort of, but didn't really, invade Britain in 43. He was Emperor until 54, so what was going on in the Empire in the 13 years he was in charge.
One thing he did was expand the empire, and not just trying to gain control of what is obviously the nicest bit of Europe, and by far the best island around. Mind you not much of his expansions had the same drama as with the Britons.

He created the province of Thrace in 46 AD, but that was mostly an admin. All the way back in 168 BC, the Romans had beaten the Macedonians in the third of four Macedonian Wars. Thrace was put under Roman control, as a client Kingdom, a similar arrangement to what Claudius did with the Britons. Eventually, the Romans just started outright appointing the Kings of Thrace without even pretending they weren't. So Claudius just upgraded them to a Roman Province and replaced the puppet kings with a Roman governor. Much easier.
It was the same story with the Celtic region that became the province of Noricum, in what is now Austria and Slovenia. It had been under Roman control for more than 50 years, it was just made official.
The Lycians, over in modern Turkey, had less luck with the Romans. They had been allies of the Romans for over a hundred years, although knowing the Romans it could have been a fairly uneven kind of alliance. Either way, Claudius steamed in and made them a province under Roman rule. The tone of it seems a bit more aggressive than with Trace and co. Next door Pamphylia was folded into a Roman province as well, with a similar story to the rest.
Judea was also added as a province, which was what is now Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The Romans had been involved in the region for a while, following the wars against Mithridates. The area next door, Syria, had been made a Province in 63 BC. Romans basically managed who ruled in Judea. For example, Herod, of killing newborns fame, was made King of The Jews by the Roman Senate. Herod's son became ruler in Judea, but apparently, he was so crap the locals asked the Romans to kick him out. After that, in 6 AD, the Romans directly ran the place, as a sort of add-on to Syria.
The Jews in the region kicked off big style against Caligula's mad reign, and as a result, Claudius gave them more autonomy, reinstating a King from Herod's line. It’s still weird to us that Herod was a proper historical figure we can talk about.
This seems to be a token gesture, and the place was still Roman ran. Either way in 44, the descendant of Herod, Agrippa, died, and the Romans took proper control of the place again. So if Claudius did take control of the province, it was only because he gave it away in the first place.
We mentioned Mauritania in a previous episode, with Caligula assassinating it's king and taking the place over. With Caligula's reign being short but mad, Claudius had to mop up the mess. Not that this was too much of a stretch. Mauritania had been a client kingdom since the last century. So it was pretty much run by the Romans anyway. There was a rebellion,]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1103Thu, 15 Feb 2018 21:24:47 +000021s Century PillockHas Rome got actually got themselves a decent Roman Emperor? Not only an effective Emperor but one who doesn't cause a civil war every 5 minutes? Don't get too excited though, it wasn't all beer and skittles in Claudius' Rome.   Transcript – Claudius... 
Transcript – Claudius As Roman Emperor. The One With The Breath Of Fresh Air
 
Our last history of Britain episode we went over Claudius and what he wanted everyone to think was his invasion of Britain.
In this companion episode we ask ourselves can a Roman Emperor ever be anything other than a nightmare for the Romans? What sort of bloke gets married four times? And what’s wrong with the alphabet?
 
Part One – The Expansion
We know that Claudius came to become Emperor in slightly shady circumstances in 41 AD, and we know he sort of, but didn't really, invade Britain in 43. He was Emperor until 54, so what was going on in the Empire in the 13 years he was in charge.
One thing he did was expand the empire, and not just trying to gain control of what is obviously the nicest bit of Europe, and by far the best island around. Mind you not much of his expansions had the same drama as with the Britons.

He created the province of Thrace in 46 AD, but that was mostly an admin. All the way back in 168 BC, the Romans had beaten the Macedonians in the third of four Macedonian Wars. Thrace was put under Roman control, as a client Kingdom, a similar arrangement to what Claudius did with the Britons. Eventually, the Romans just started outright appointing the Kings of Thrace without even pretending they weren't. So Claudius just upgraded them to a Roman Province and replaced the puppet kings with a Roman governor. Much easier.
It was the same story with the Celtic region that became the province of Noricum, in what is now Austria and Slovenia. It had been under Roman control for more than 50 years, it was just made official.
The Lycians, over in modern Turkey, had less luck with the Romans. They had been allies of the Romans for over a hundred years, although knowing the Romans it could have been a fairly uneven kind of alliance. Either way, Claudius steamed in and made them a province under Roman rule. The tone of it seems a bit more aggressive than with Trace and co. Next door Pamphylia was folded into a Roman province as well, with a similar story to the rest.
Judea was also added as a province, which was what is now Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The Romans had been involved in the region for a while, following the wars against Mithridates. The area next door, Syria, had been made a Province in 63 BC. Romans basically managed who ruled in Judea. For example, Herod, of killing newborns fame, was made King of The Jews by the Roman Senate. Herod's son became ruler in Judea, but apparently, he was so crap the locals asked the Romans to kick him out. After that, in 6 AD, the Romans directly ran the place, as a sort of add-on to Syria.
The Jews in the region kicked off big style against Caligula's mad reign, and as a result, Claudius gave them more autonomy, reinstating a King from Herod's line. It’s still weird to us that Herod was a proper historical figure we can talk about.
This seems to be a token gesture, and the place was still Roman ran. Either way in 44, the descendant of Herod, Agrippa, died, and the Romans took proper control of the place again. So if Claudius did take control of the province, it was only because he gave it away in the first place.
We mentioned Mauritania in a previous episode, with Caligula assassinating it's king and taking the place over. With Caligula's reign being short but mad, Claudius had to mop up the mess. Not that this was too much of a stretch. Mauritania had been a client kingdom since the last century. So it was pretty much run by the Romans anyway. There was a rebellion,]]>1103yesfull21s Century PillockHas Rome got actually got themselves a decent Roman Emperor? Not only an effective Emperor but one who doesn't cause a civil war every 5 minutes? Don't get too excited though, it wasn't all beer and skittles in Claudius' Rome.   Transcript – Claudius As Roman Emperor. The One With The Breath Of Fresh Air   Our last history of Britain episode we went over Claudius and what he wanted everyone to think was his invasion of Britain. In this companion episode we ask ourselves can a Roman Emperor ever be anything other than a nightmare for the Romans? What sort of bloke gets married four times? And what’s wrong with the alphabet?   Part One – The Expansion We know that Claudius came to become Emperor in slightly shady circumstances in 41 AD, and we know he sort of, but didn't really, invade Britain in 43. He was Emperor until 54, so what was going on in the Empire in the 13 years he was in charge. One thing he did was expand the empire, and not just trying to gain control of what is obviously the nicest bit of Europe, and by far the best island around. Mind you not much of his expansions had the same drama as with the Britons. He created the province of Thrace in 46 AD, but that was mostly an admin. All the way back in 168 BC, the Romans had beaten the Macedonians in the third of four Macedonian Wars. Thrace was put under Roman control, as a client Kingdom, a similar arrangement to what Claudius did with the Britons. Eventually, the Romans just started outright appointing the Kings of Thrace without even pretending they weren't. So Claudius just upgraded them to a Roman Province and replaced the puppet kings with a Roman governor. Much easier. It was the same story with the Celtic region that became the province of Noricum, in what is now Austria and Slovenia. It had been under Roman control for more than 50 years, it was just made official. The Lycians, over in modern Turkey, had less luck with the Romans. They had been allies of the Romans for over a hundred years, although knowing the Romans it could have been a fairly uneven kind of alliance. Either way, Claudius steamed in and made them a province under Roman rule. The tone of it seems a bit more aggressive than with Trace and co. Next door Pamphylia was folded into a Roman province as well, with a similar story to the rest. Judea was also added as a province, which was what is now Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The Romans had been involved in the region for a while, following the wars against Mithridates. The area next door, Syria, had been made a Province in 63 BC. Romans basically managed who ruled in Judea. For example, Herod, of killing newborns fame, was made King of The Jews by the Roman Senate. Herod's son became ruler in Judea, but apparently, he was so crap the locals asked the Romans to kick him out. After that, in 6 AD, the Romans directly ran the place, as a sort of add-on to Syria. The Jews in the region kicked off big style against Caligula's mad reign, and as a result, Claudius gave them more autonomy, reinstating a King from Herod's line. It’s still weird to us that Herod was a proper historical figure we can talk about. This seems to be a token gesture, and the place was still Roman ran. Either way in 44, the descendant of Herod, Agrippa, died, and the Romans took proper control of the place again. So if Claudius did take control of the province, it was only because he gave it away in the first place. We mentioned Mauritania in a previous episode, with Caligula assassinating it's king and taking the place over. With Caligula's reign being short but mad, Claudius had to mop up the mess. Not that this was too much of a stretch. Mauritania had been a client kingdom since the last century. So it was pretty much run by the Romans anyway. There was a rebellion,Yeshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/10303949/5-claudius-invades-britain-the-one-where
Transcript – Claudius Invades Britain. The One Where They Finally Get It Done.
 
 
By this point in our history of Britain, the Romans have been thinking about taking over the British Isles for nearly 100 years. We’ve had Julius Caesar turning up in Britain, as a proper token effort, to make people think he was doing important stuff. We’ve had Augustus putting us on a to do list, with the best of intentions, but ultimately being distracted by something shiny. Then we have had Caligula looking like he was going to achieve something, but really being too shit. Anyone who has ever had an office job will completely understand.
 
This week we ask ourselves, why would Romans bother with Britain? what can a physically disabled bloke can do to look hard? And is the only way to deal with bullies really to stand up with them?
 
Part 1 – Who’s in charge here?
 
Now we are finally getting to the bit where the Romans properly invade Britain. In 43 AD, there was a new Emperor in town and he kicked of the invasion that started the Roman occupation of Britain. So who was this heroic, imperial figure who upped the stakes against the mighty Julius Caesar? Which man mountain finally dragged the Great British Ilse towards a place in written history? It was Claudius, the half-deaf uncle of the mad Emperor Caligula, who walked with a limp.
 
To be fair to anyone who is deaf or has a limp, it’s unlikely to have caused him much of a problem in what was in effect an administrative job. It did make it unlikely that the macho macho Romans would have had him as a leader. They were all about military prowess. Weirdly though, his disabilities were probably the reason he was made emperor at all, he was the classic non threatening beta male.
 
In our last companion episode, we mentioned that Caligula wasn't the most popular of blokes, and we hinted he may have come to a sticky end. To be honest it’s not 100% clear exactly how erratically Caligula did act. It’s also not 100% agreed upon whether he had some serious mental illness, or if he was just a horrible bloke given too much power. It’s not too dissimilar to people asking whether Donald Trump has dementia or if he is just a twat. Either way, what happened to Caligula should make Trump take a closer look at his bodyguards. Can you imagine having to spend all day in a room listening to that?
 
By January 41 AD, Caligula had pissed off everyone far too much. There were apparently plenty of conspiracies to get rid of him, but in the end, the one that worked was a nice and simple route one approach. Members of his Praetorian Guard stabbed him. So he died. Easy. What happened after was a bit messy. The Praetorian Guard were the main guards of the Emperor and his household. However, there were another set of guards, called the Germanic Guard, who were close personal bodyguards. These soldiers were recruited from far-flung bits of the Empire, like Germania. The point was that they would be less likely to get involved in Roman politics than the locals, and were more likely to be unquestioningly pro-emperor. In the event, these Germanic Guards kicked off and went on a revenge trip killing and wounding anyone who looked even vaguely guilty. The members of the Praetorian Guard went on their own spree, killing Caligula’s family. Which should have included his uncle, Claudius.
 
The story goes that Claudius went off an hid, but some pro-Caligula or at least pro-emperor Praetorians found him hiding behind a curtain. And they made him Emperor. Right, let's just stop there a sec.]]>https://21stcenturypillock.com/?p=1085Sat, 03 Feb 2018 22:31:03 +000021s Century PillockThere is a new emperor in town, and Claudius wants a piece of Britain. Finally. We were starting to think it was something we said. So why did Claudius finally get it done properly? How did he get it done? Was he a master of PR? Transcript – Claudius...
Transcript – Claudius Invades Britain. The One Where They Finally Get It Done.
 
 
By this point in our history of Britain, the Romans have been thinking about taking over the British Isles for nearly 100 years. We’ve had Julius Caesar turning up in Britain, as a proper token effort, to make people think he was doing important stuff. We’ve had Augustus putting us on a to do list, with the best of intentions, but ultimately being distracted by something shiny. Then we have had Caligula looking like he was going to achieve something, but really being too shit. Anyone who has ever had an office job will completely understand.
 
This week we ask ourselves, why would Romans bother with Britain? what can a physically disabled bloke can do to look hard? And is the only way to deal with bullies really to stand up with them?
 
Part 1 – Who’s in charge here?
 
Now we are finally getting to the bit where the Romans properly invade Britain. In 43 AD, there was a new Emperor in town and he kicked of the invasion that started the Roman occupation of Britain. So who was this heroic, imperial figure who upped the stakes against the mighty Julius Caesar? Which man mountain finally dragged the Great British Ilse towards a place in written history? It was Claudius, the half-deaf uncle of the mad Emperor Caligula, who walked with a limp.
 
To be fair to anyone who is deaf or has a limp, it’s unlikely to have caused him much of a problem in what was in effect an administrative job. It did make it unlikely that the macho macho Romans would have had him as a leader. They were all about military prowess. Weirdly though, his disabilities were probably the reason he was made emperor at all, he was the classic non threatening beta male.
 
In our last companion episode, we mentioned that Caligula wasn't the most popular of blokes, and we hinted he may have come to a sticky end. To be honest it’s not 100% clear exactly how erratically Caligula did act. It’s also not 100% agreed upon whether he had some serious mental illness, or if he was just a horrible bloke given too much power. It’s not too dissimilar to people asking whether Donald Trump has dementia or if he is just a twat. Either way, what happened to Caligula should make Trump take a closer look at his bodyguards. Can you imagine having to spend all day in a room listening to that?
 
By January 41 AD, Caligula had pissed off everyone far too much. There were apparently plenty of conspiracies to get rid of him, but in the end, the one that worked was a nice and simple route one approach. Members of his Praetorian Guard stabbed him. So he died. Easy. What happened after was a bit messy. The Praetorian Guard were the main guards of the Emperor and his household. However, there were another set of guards, called the Germanic Guard, who were close personal bodyguards. These soldiers were recruited from far-flung bits of the Empire, like Germania. The point was that they would be less likely to get involved in Roman politics than the locals, and were more likely to be unquestioningly pro-emperor. In the event, these Germanic Guards kicked off and went on a revenge trip killing and wounding anyone who looked even vaguely guilty. The members of the Praetorian Guard went on their own spree, killing Caligula’s family. Which should have included his uncle, Claudius.
 
The story goes that Claudius went off an hid, but some pro-Caligula or at least pro-emperor Praetorians found him hiding behind a curtain. And they made him Emperor. Right, let's just stop there a sec.]]>1239yesfull21s Century PillockThere is a new emperor in town, and Claudius wants a piece of Britain. Finally. We were starting to think it was something we said. So why did Claudius finally get it done properly? How did he get it done? Was he a master of PR? Transcript – Claudius Invades Britain. The One Where They Finally Get It Done.     By this point in our history of Britain, the Romans have been thinking about taking over the British Isles for nearly 100 years. We’ve had Julius Caesar turning up in Britain, as a proper token effort, to make people think he was doing important stuff. We’ve had Augustus putting us on a to do list, with the best of intentions, but ultimately being distracted by something shiny. Then we have had Caligula looking like he was going to achieve something, but really being too shit. Anyone who has ever had an office job will completely understand.   This week we ask ourselves, why would Romans bother with Britain? what can a physically disabled bloke can do to look hard? And is the only way to deal with bullies really to stand up with them?   Part 1 – Who’s in charge here?   Now we are finally getting to the bit where the Romans properly invade Britain. In 43 AD, there was a new Emperor in town and he kicked of the invasion that started the Roman occupation of Britain. So who was this heroic, imperial figure who upped the stakes against the mighty Julius Caesar? Which man mountain finally dragged the Great British Ilse towards a place in written history? It was Claudius, the half-deaf uncle of the mad Emperor Caligula, who walked with a limp.   To be fair to anyone who is deaf or has a limp, it’s unlikely to have caused him much of a problem in what was in effect an administrative job. It did make it unlikely that the macho macho Romans would have had him as a leader. They were all about military prowess. Weirdly though, his disabilities were probably the reason he was made emperor at all, he was the classic non threatening beta male.   In our last companion episode, we mentioned that Caligula wasn't the most popular of blokes, and we hinted he may have come to a sticky end. To be honest it’s not 100% clear exactly how erratically Caligula did act. It’s also not 100% agreed upon whether he had some serious mental illness, or if he was just a horrible bloke given too much power. It’s not too dissimilar to people asking whether Donald Trump has dementia or if he is just a twat. Either way, what happened to Caligula should make Trump take a closer look at his bodyguards. Can you imagine having to spend all day in a room listening to that?   By January 41 AD, Caligula had pissed off everyone far too much. There were apparently plenty of conspiracies to get rid of him, but in the end, the one that worked was a nice and simple route one approach. Members of his Praetorian Guard stabbed him. So he died. Easy. What happened after was a bit messy. The Praetorian Guard were the main guards of the Emperor and his household. However, there were another set of guards, called the Germanic Guard, who were close personal bodyguards. These soldiers were recruited from far-flung bits of the Empire, like Germania. The point was that they would be less likely to get involved in Roman politics than the locals, and were more likely to be unquestioningly pro-emperor. In the event, these Germanic Guards kicked off and went on a revenge trip killing and wounding anyone who looked even vaguely guilty. The members of the Praetorian Guard went on their own spree, killing Caligula’s family. Which should have included his uncle, Claudius.   The story goes that Claudius went off an hid, but some pro-Caligula or at least pro-emperor Praetorians found him hiding behind a curtain. And they made him Emperor. Right, let's just stop there a sec.Yes