Podcast
Of Myths and Mortals with Jesse Owen.
Power, ambition, fear, violence, belief and reputation: the real people behind history's most enduring names.
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Rome's New Man: Gaius Marius and the Power of Rescue
Gaius Marius rose without consular ancestors to become the commander Roman voters repeatedly chose when established leaders failed. This is the story of the discipline, poor volunteers, hard victories and soldiers' rewards that made him Rome's great rescuer—and of the political power created when a republic began depending on one man's earned authority.
Marcus Aurelius: The Work of a Human Being
The Roman emperor remembered as a philosopher was not born serene, and his private notebook is not proof of a flawless life. This is the story of Marcus Aurelius learning Stoicism through demanding teachers, carrying its exercises into court, epidemic and frontier war, and repeatedly fighting fatigue, anger, distraction, vanity and fear. It follows the making of the Meditations, tests its ideals against the choices and limits of imperial rule, and asks why an unfinished practice of beginning again has survived the empire that produced it.