Lost Roman Heroes - Episode 99: How Slavery Made Rome with Emma Southon
About this episode
The episode discusses the impact of slavery on the Roman Empire with historian Emma Southon.
Join LRH as we interview historian and podcaster Emma Southon, author of the recently published "Not Built in a Day: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire." For 98 episodes we've covered Roman heroes. But we've never told the story of the millions of enslaved people who built everything our favorite heroes stood on. It always appeared as backdrop. As color. As afterthought. Roman slavery started in earnest in 146 BCE. The year Rome destroyed Carthage and erased Corinth in the same breath. The year something snapped. Enemies stopped being adversaries and started being examples. A New Rome. A Darker Rome. And inseparable from that darkness, an explosion of slavery on a scale the ancient world had never seen. Emma Southon has spent her career recovering the people Rome tried to erase, the enslaved, and the women, both written out of a record created entirely by the rich men who owned and overlooked them. In this episode we talk about what that record can and can't tell us, why no Roman ever tried to abolish the institution, how America's experience with slavery might inform our understanding of Roman slavery, and why Spartacus matters more than Hollywood understands.
People in this episode
Hosts: Matteo, Matthew Storm
Guest: Emma Southon
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Not Built in a Day: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire
Places: Rome, Carthage, Corinth
More episodes of LOST ROMAN HEROES
- Lost Roman Heroes - Episode 100: Leander & Isidore
- Lost Roman Heroes - Episode 98: Father's Day Special with History in Zoomer
- Lost Roman Heroes - Episode 97: Gregory the Great (Part 2)
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