Decline & Fall of the Ancient World

Speaker 1 Hi, folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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Speaker 14 Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well and welcome to this latest episode of The Ancients. And it's a special one because it is a crossover episode with my fellow history hit host, Matthew Lewis.

Speaker 14 Matt Lewis, one of the hosts of the Gone Medieval podcast. And And it's fitting because the topic is we're exploring where the medieval world begins and the ancient world ends.

Speaker 14 This was really fun to do with Matt. We did it in our studio.
It's also going out on YouTube. We had little cards with dates on.

Speaker 14 We had to debate whether we say they are medieval in date or whether they're ancient. What do we mean by the beginning of the medieval world? How long a process is it? And so much more.

Speaker 14 This is also an episode where I really encourage you to comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.
Where do you agree with what Matt and I said?

Speaker 14 What you think about the end of ancient and the beginning of medieval? How you would define it? We'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 14 So, definitely leave some comments as well all about this special episode today.

Speaker 14 Right, without further ado, let's go.

Speaker 14 Welcome to the Ancients.

Speaker 14 Today, we have a special treat because I am joined by my esteemed but sometimes confused when it comes to dates, colleague Matt Lewis, historian and host of the Gone Medieval Podcast, to have a frank discussion on the most awkward period in Western history.

Speaker 14 We're talking about a messy 500 year long process between 300 and 850 AD, which my people might call the decline and fall of the ancient world, the end of antiquity.

Speaker 14 His people, however, call it the early middle ages. We know this is a deeply nuanced and complex period that evolved uniquely across different places and at different paces.

Speaker 14 The world didn't just go to sleep one night ancient and wake up the next day medieval. Listen, I know that.
Matt knows that. You know that.

Speaker 14 However, our producers want to fight and have placed in my hand a stack of key people and events for us to battle over and claim for our own.

Speaker 14 We will be debating whether these moments represent collapse or continuity. This could get ugly, but HR is on standby.
Matt, great to have you on the show. Are you ready for it?

Speaker 16 It's fantastic to be here.

Speaker 14 Let's go. Let's correct some of your theories, but also you're not confused most of the time.
It's just, I get competitive when it comes to this time period. How are you feeling?

Speaker 14 Well, I've got the bruises to prove how competitive you get.

Speaker 14 HR is right there. That makes me sound very bad, but okay, no, let's go straight into it.
So we're going to talk through these dates and discuss, do we think they're ancient?

Speaker 14 Do we think they're medieval? And the whole process behind it.

Speaker 14 fantastic and it is such an interesting period i must admit my main area being i guess outside doing the general interviews being much earlier on with like alexander the great and the hellenistic period but you know still being fascinated in actually figuring out when antiquity ends and it being so often linked to ancient rome and the roman empire and when the middle ages begins it's a fascinating kind of period to talk about it is and i'm in the same boat in that if i'm an expert in anything it's the late medieval period so i'm working backwards to try and work out how we arrived at the late medieval period.

Speaker 16 But, you know, we've both spoken to a lot of incredibly clever people about this mushy area in the middle. And I think we can hopefully try and glean what's yours and what's mine.

Speaker 16 Like you say, we've had fisticuffs before in the office about

Speaker 14 stay away from this topic or that topic, isn't it? All's fair in love and war. That's the quote.
I think also the fact that this will be our enthusiasts' opinions on the matter.

Speaker 14 There'll be lots of avenues for disagreement and encourage people to comment and give their their thoughts as well.

Speaker 16 Yeah, yeah, fight us in the comments. Absolutely.

Speaker 14 Like, the team have given us a number of cards. I don't know what's on them.
I certainly don't know, unless you've had a peek.

Speaker 14 But my hunch is that there'll probably be a series of dates and statements, and we have to decide whether it's ancient or medieval territory, and we can fight it out.

Speaker 14 So, with all that being said, shall we get into it? Let's get stuck in. All right.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 14 This feels like going quite far ahead. An eighth-century date, first of all.
We've got 732 AD.

Speaker 16 You're not having that.

Speaker 14 Get out. I don't think I can claim that anyway.
And it's going to the Battle of Tours and Charles Martel. So this is very much early medieval territory.
I'm not going to fight this one.

Speaker 16 Yeah, so we're on the verge of the emergence of a Frankish nation and those kinds of ideas. The coming together of those fractured small kingdoms that had emerged after the fall of Rome.

Speaker 16 And Charles Martel is fighting battles against Islam coming in from southern Spain and all of those kinds of things as well.

Speaker 16 So there's a little bit in there about the friction between Christianity and Islam early on, a little bit about defining nationhood and all of that kind of thing.

Speaker 16 But I feel like that's firmly medieval territory and you need to back off. I mean, completely.

Speaker 14 You've had the spread of Islam already, haven't you? And, you know, all the way to Morocco and then into Spain.

Speaker 14 If there were any Frankish leaders who I could contest and maybe say is in the ancient world still, maybe Clovis early on in the forming of the Frankish kingdom. But you're right, isn't it?

Speaker 14 It's that transition from that mosaic of different barbarian Visigoths, Burgundians, Frankish kingdoms into something more powerful, like the Frankish kingdom that becomes Frankish.

Speaker 16 And I guess maybe you would put it in there because this is when the map of Western Europe starts to look a little bit more like something we would recognize.

Speaker 16 You can almost plot France on a map and that kind of thing. But I feel like there is a lot of medieval territory to get there.

Speaker 14 There's a statement here. It's like, it sets in stone the borders of medieval Western Europe.
Do you think that's fair with the Battle of Tour, how seismic it is?

Speaker 16 I mean, they're always moving a little bit, but it is in terms of, you know, the Muslims who are in southern Spain will remain there for 700 years after this battle.

Speaker 16 So it does settle the limits of where Islam is encroaching into southern Iberia.

Speaker 16 And as I say, around the time of Charles Martel, you've got something that looks very much like France beginning to emerge. But nothing else is very settled yet, I don't think.

Speaker 14 No, completely. I don't think we need to hand any more time on this because I'm not contesting it.
That's yours. There you go.
You can take it. But you get the ancient logo.
We keep your score.

Speaker 14 Is that 1-0? I guess that's 1-0. I think that's not really fair, though.
So 32 AD. Well, let's see what the next one is.
Okay, this is more interesting. And this is one I certainly will fight for.

Speaker 14 476 AD. Now, does that ring a bell?

Speaker 16 That's the fall of the Roman Empire.

Speaker 14 Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Well, it's the date of, I mean, the last Roman Emperor in the West, Romulus Augustulus, giving up his throne, abdicating to Oduaka.

Speaker 14 And And then like there's no further Western Roman emperor. But of course the Roman Empire does continue at pace in the East.
I think it's Emperor Zeno who's ruling at the time.

Speaker 14 And Oduacca, of all people, actually then seeks kind of almost dare I say permission from the Emperor Zeno, you know, and what to do in Italy.

Speaker 14 So there's still very much respect to that Roman rule there in the East and it's still as strong as ever, which is why I say

Speaker 14 I would say that this is still ancient history. There's a tendency to say that is this actually the cut-off point?

Speaker 14 If people want to pinpoint a date for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, 476 AD is the traditional date.

Speaker 16 Yeah, it's one of those really convenient pins in the map that you can put on a timeline and you can just hang the division between ancient and medieval on that.

Speaker 16 But if I was to suggest that that's becoming a medieval period, I would suggest that we have previously had problems for Rome. Rome has been sacked.
Rome is already a lame duck.

Speaker 16 It's just waiting to be put out of its misery, I guess.

Speaker 14 Completely, I I remember talking to Dr.

Speaker 14 David Gwynne about this and another filmed episode on the origins of the fall of Rome, a series we did earlier this year, and also Adrian Goldsworthy, who talked about this as well.

Speaker 14 Basically highlighting, as you say, the emperor's a lame duck by this point. It's the power of the Fiderati, you know, these people who

Speaker 14 are in the service of these figureheads, but they've had power for some time, and they just, Odowaka just decides there's actually no need for this little kid anymore.

Speaker 14 But it's certainly not the end of ancient history, I would argue, at that time, because there's no kind of dissolution of Roman beliefs or values.

Speaker 14 The mosaic of kingdoms that emerges in Western Europe at that time, as we talk like the Visigoths in Spain, you ultimately get the Ostrogoths and Theodoric the Great in Italy and Clovis in the Franks.

Speaker 14 They're still got clear

Speaker 14 embracing of Roman values and ideas.

Speaker 14 There's no kind of clear cut-off point. The only exception to that we might explore this later is Britain, where there is a clearer cut-off point.

Speaker 14 So I would say that the whole of the fifth century, if we're taking a Eurocentric view, which I think we largely will be with terms like medieval and ancient, aren't we?

Speaker 14 In that sphere, I would argue that the whole of the fifth century on the continent, European continent at least, is still ancient history.

Speaker 16 It's a tricky one though, isn't it?

Speaker 16 Because what leads to Rome falling in 476, it's the emergence of a different mindset, a different way of doing things that has been attacking Rome for decades decades by this point.

Speaker 16 So something has changed. Something in the way that people are living has changed.
And I think it's important

Speaker 16 we are going to be mainly in Western Europe. The medieval period is a term for Western Europe, really.

Speaker 16 And we're not talking about everyone going to bed wearing togas and waking up in the morning thinking, well, that's stupid. I'm going to put some hose on and dress completely differently.

Speaker 16 It's not like an overnight thing.

Speaker 14 But if I was going to make a claim on 476 tipping over into the medieval world, it's that it's a medieval mindset that has already emerged that is causing rome to be dragged down that is a good point and maybe that kind of harkens back to the overarching idea that it is a transitional phase you know my over a long period of time it is complicated it's complex and maybe 476 well actually almost likely certainly

Speaker 14 it's nearer the beginning than the end of that whole transitional phase, I'd argue, which will go into the sixth century as well. I'm sure we'll visit it in time.
So

Speaker 14 as you're right, the forming of the medieval world is certainly there by this point with those kingdoms like the Visigoths and the Franks and so on.

Speaker 14 But I wouldn't say that this is clear-cut medieval like that one is. So, I would say that, yes, maybe it is in the transitional phase, but I would still put it in ancient territory.

Speaker 16 I'll give you a one-all.

Speaker 14 A one-all. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 16 I mean, you're a Boston City fan, so you need every help you can get.

Speaker 14 So good. 111 points last season.
Not so good this season. Too used to winning, that's the problem.
Right, should we move on to the next one? What have we got?

Speaker 14 Okay, I'm a bit more confident about this one. We're going back to the third century, so 286 AD.
So a bit of context, because I know this is really out of your comfort zone, okay?

Speaker 14 This is known as the end of the third century crisis. So this is a time, kind of a period roughly of 50 years, where you've had more than 25 emperors rise and fall.

Speaker 14 I think only one dies of natural causes. The rest are done away with, either assassinations, poisonings, or killed in battle and usurpers and so on.

Speaker 14 It's epitomized as a period of great instability where the Roman Empire could easily have fallen and was close to falling.

Speaker 14 And there were certain points in the third century where the Roman Empire is divided into three. I mean you have like breakaway states like Palmyra in the east with Zenobia and the Gallic Empire.

Speaker 14 Britain as well is cut away.

Speaker 14 But it holds together. Because you do see, and once again, this is largely regurgitating the work of the brilliant doctor David Gwynne, who did a lovely interview about this.

Speaker 14 You have the works of figures like two particular emperors, Gallianus and Auridian, who work hard to kind of reform and sort out the empire when it's at its weakest in the two 60s and 70s, and it unites.

Speaker 14 So the Roman Empire does come through this period of crisis. And arguably, well, not arguably at all, by the time you do get to the fourth century, it's stronger than ever.

Speaker 14 An everyday Roman wouldn't have thought that their empire was in decline at that point.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I was going to make the, I was going to ask the question as to whether that could be viewed as the beginning of the end, if it was a moment of crisis that saw a lot of reshaping.

Speaker 16 But if the Roman Empire is coming out of it stronger, I guess it's more difficult for me to position it as the beginning of the end and perhaps the beginning of the emergence of the world.

Speaker 14 No, but you are kind of right, because this is kind of the clear cut-off point where we say, like, now this is late antiquity, right?

Speaker 14 You know, this is away from your time of your Marcus Aurelius's, your Septimius Severus's Trajan, Hadrian. This is a time when Christianity is about to come to the fore.
You have

Speaker 14 more clear-cut divisions of power, I would argue, as well. There's more often than not times where you have multiple emperors.

Speaker 14 The end of the third century is defined by the Tetrarchy, which is Diocletian dividing the empire first into two senior Augustae and then into four with two junior rulers as well.

Speaker 16 Which, in some ways, is a precedent for what will come later with the splintering of small petty kingdoms emerging.

Speaker 16 You've suddenly got this idea that there isn't one single figure who rules over everything in a divinely appointed kind of way.

Speaker 16 There is an idea that there can be a separation of all of that and that there can be more than one ruler ruling over this whole territory, which is where the medieval mind gets to with the splintering of all of this and all the small petty kingdoms.

Speaker 16 When the Roman Empire smashes apart, it's like a thousand pieces of glass and eventually it starts being pieced together.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, there will be some exceptions. I mean, the rule of Constantine the Great, of course, Theodosius the Great as well.

Speaker 14 But usually they find that the empire is just too big, that one person can't deal with it, the fracturing of it.

Speaker 14 And yes, that will then just kind of go to the next level as you get to the fifth century.

Speaker 14 And then you know it's funny this idea of breakaway states is nothing new to the romans by the time they get to the fourth century as i mentioned britain earlier look at corosius who led a breakaway state uh in britain right around this time 286 but as you say it just becomes more

Speaker 14 I guess the norm.

Speaker 16 It sounds like there's a recognition from the centre as well, rather than it being someone breaking away and Rome needing to drag them back into compliance.

Speaker 14 There's a recognition at the center in Rome that more than one person is maybe needed to rule all of this yes and then sometimes there are times where like they have too much on their plate that they can't I mean Roman Britain look to your own defences and all that kind of stuff right see Agrius and in northern France sounds dangerously medieval yes

Speaker 14 this is the problem with dates because if I then said

Speaker 14 you've also put a good argument there for like you know that you can see kind of formations of medieval world even back in the late third century but if I've already gone for four seven six we touched a renegotiation if you then say that this is medieval I don't think that'd be quite fair, but what do you think?

Speaker 16 I mean, that's going to have to be an ancient date.

Speaker 16 But I think it really plays into this idea that it's a much longer transition than we think it is, that it's going to become harder and harder to hang it off one date, whether that's 4.7.6 or any other date.

Speaker 16 We're looking at a whole period of cultural, societal, political change and evolution rather than a single cut-off date. It's going to make the rest of this chat quite tricky.

Speaker 14 I mean, completely.

Speaker 14 And I'd also argue a transition but getting out of this linear idea that it's a downward decline consistently the transition you could argue is starting by the end of the third century and into the fourth century but rome is yes although there's the division of power yes the army's different to the one you might think from gladiator and the like but is it actually weaker you could argue absolutely not you know the amount of uh you know it's still a strong entity it is just changing in its format

Speaker 14 key period which would ultimately you will see evidence of enduring into the medieval world.

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Speaker 14 Right, okay, on to the next one. So, 410AD.
So this is one where we can kind of, we can negotiate stuff around if we feel we need to. Do you know anything about 41080? Is this a sack of Rome?

Speaker 14 It is the sack of Rome. The first.

Speaker 16 A sack of Rome.

Speaker 14 A sack of Rome. We can do it more than once.
Surely. Psychologically, this is the hammer blow.

Speaker 14 Like, this is the first time Rome has been sacked in some 700 years since the Gauls under a guy called Brennus in around 390 BC, right?

Speaker 14 So Rome has forged an empire in that time in the Republican period.

Speaker 14 It's defeated all the old great enemies like Hannibal, the Macedonians, Cleopatra, Augustus, Trajan, all those big names have existed in that more than half a century since Rome itself was assaulted and, you know, kind of subjected to a military attack in what the Romans would have considered ancient history.

Speaker 16 And is this the Vandals? Is it 410 the Vandals?

Speaker 14 Wash your mouth out with soap. How dare you? No.

Speaker 16 This is the Goths. The Goths.

Speaker 14 Visigoths, I guess you could say, well Visigoths is more later. We just say the Goths.
The Vandals is later, though. And And you do hit an important point.
I think that's 456.

Speaker 14 But Rome is sacked twice in the period of 50 years. And actually, that Vandals sack of Rome by Geyseric and the Vandals is worse than the 410 sack in regards to the devastation and destruction.

Speaker 14 But the 410 one by Alaric and his followers is, as it's psychologically a hammer blow because it's that first time Rome has actually been attacked and sacked. I don't think the sacking is that brutal.

Speaker 14 I'm sure people will disagree. I said, I'm not a leading expert.
I'm just trying to remember what David Gwynne told me as he's one of the leading lights on this and Peter Heather as well.

Speaker 14 We interviewed both pretty recently on it.

Speaker 16 But it's the fact of Rome being sacked, not how badly it was sacked, it's the fact that there is now a rival making its way into the very heart of the Roman Empire, which again, as we talked about before, 7.6, this plays into the idea that something has already changed and happened for the Goths to be there.

Speaker 16 to assault Rome. Are the Goths a medieval people? Because if there are medieval people attacking Rome, are we in the medieval world?

Speaker 14 Well, are the Goths a medieval people? I don't think you could say that, but it's like the beginning of a trend of mass migrations into the Roman Empire.

Speaker 14 The Roman Empire has dealt with migrations before and, you know, brought people in. There's been trouble on the frontiers before.

Speaker 14 They've always brought people in, but it's the scale of them now that's sending them over the edge. Poor decision making as well.

Speaker 14 I mean, the reason that Alaric and the Goths ultimately end up there is they've already had a quite a gazump, shall we say, or a blitz around the Balkans Balkans and the Eastern Roman Empire, the defeat of the Valens at the Battle of Adrianople a few decades earlier.

Speaker 14 But the point I was going to say is it's not that brutal a sacking. You know, they don't attack the churches.
The Goths are Christian. Alaric had been trying to avoid a sack of Rome.

Speaker 14 He'd been negotiating with the Emperor. The Emperor's not there.
Rome has lost its kind of...

Speaker 14 Part of its importance is gone by the early 5th century. Ravenna and Milan have been kind of new centers of power for the rulers in the West.
Rome is symbolic.

Speaker 14 It's the symbolic nature of it that is so devastating. But I think there's a point there in the fact that, you know, it is the start of a trend.

Speaker 16 It feels like maybe 410 is the alarm clock going off and the Roman Empire kind of rolling over and hitting snooze. Yes.
Maybe they should have woken up a bit earlier.

Speaker 14 I think so. Well, whether they could have, because, of course, by 410, you've also got other groups crossing the Rhine a couple of years earlier.

Speaker 14 Does Rome have the capacity in the West to deal with all these different threats? You have the Huns as well. They'll also invade Italy.
Attila will invade Italy as well for a bit as well.

Speaker 14 So as you say, it's the start of a process where Italy is no longer the safe area, you know, no one can touch. It's the flourishing centre.

Speaker 14 It does hammer away the invincible nature of Rome and this idea, which I think was very much there in most people's minds, apart from a select few, I think Augustine of Hippo's one, no one could fathom the Roman Empire falling.

Speaker 14 It just wasn't in their vocabulary.

Speaker 14 And then this maybe sets a few more alarm bells ringing that maybe we're seeing the transition into something different, which maybe kind of go into the point of a medieval world coming.

Speaker 16 Yeah, yeah, the medieval world is coming for Rome, and this is entering Rome, sacking Rome, and proving itself a rival for Rome.

Speaker 14 Um, have you got any other thoughts on this from your medieval mindset?

Speaker 16 It's tricky, isn't it? I mean,

Speaker 16 I guess part of the question is, what are we talking about changing when we think about changing to the medieval world?

Speaker 16 And there's a degree to which it's about a little bit of trade and commerce and stuff as well, in that it feels to me as a complete non-expert, like Rome has become the center of consumption, but it produces absolutely nothing.

Speaker 16 So we're moving to an economy in which, rather than rich people producing everything that they need on their own villas and estates and buying in everything from abroad, we're changing to a place in which people are indulging in commerce and trade on a much wider scale and producing things and making things.

Speaker 16 And has that happened yet? I don't think it has.

Speaker 14 I think you're quite right. I think, but it is just one of those standout dates, isn't it, that we often associate with the end of ancient Rome?

Speaker 14 And I'm as guilty as anyone to love a solid date for something. It's like if you want to pinpoint a date, we talked earlier about 476 being like the end of the Roman Empire in the West.

Speaker 14 I think 410 is another one of those because, as you say, nothing completely different has changed as such. The Goths will go away, but they will then pave out their own kingdom in southern France.

Speaker 14 You know, that lays the future for the Visigoths in Spain, right? And so that very medieval times. From my perspective, it'd be interesting to see what people think.

Speaker 14 476,

Speaker 14 if you did an episode on 476 on gone medieval, I might be like,

Speaker 14 okay. But I get it.
I completely understand it because I can see the point being made that, you know, it's a date which we pinpoint to the end of antiquity.

Speaker 14 It's certainly now actually within that transitional phase to what you see as in the medieval times.

Speaker 14 410 I'd probably be a bit like,

Speaker 14 not sure about that.

Speaker 16 It's almost like you doing an episode about the worst year to be alive in the sixth century.

Speaker 14 Maybe we'll get to that in a bit. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You're quite right. Or even maybe events in the early 7th century in West Asia.

Speaker 16 I think I'm going to have to let you keep that one, though. I think I'm going to have to take another hit on this.

Speaker 14 I'm piling up quite a few here at the moment. But

Speaker 14 lo and behold, another card has appeared. Emperor Justinian.

Speaker 14 Yeah, this is... All bets are off.
Fisticuffs. You could be coming for me with this one.

Speaker 16 Yeah, make your case. We've done an episode on Gomedifa.
Oh, is that it? The wonderful Peter Sarah. That is my case.
Hand it over.

Speaker 16 Justinian is a really, really interesting one. So Byzantine Emperor, effectively emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
So we have to concede here that the Roman Empire still exists in its Eastern form.

Speaker 16 Justinian is really interesting.

Speaker 16 He goes through phases of trying to recapture. the Roman Empire, but only parts of it that are economically important.

Speaker 16 So around the Mediterranean fringe, the south of Spain and Italy and the north of Africa.

Speaker 16 He seems to have recognised that you need to cut some of the provinces loose that aren't bringing in enough money.

Speaker 16 And he focuses his efforts on getting back definitely Italy, which is the spiritual heart of the Roman Empire, but the rest of his efforts are focused on the bits that make money.

Speaker 14 North Africa, isn't it? That area, yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah, and southern Spain. And he's really keen to get those back in order to fund his own imperial exercise in the east.

Speaker 16 Justinian is really interesting, though, because I think we have someone here who is thoroughly and devotedly Christian in a very medieval sense.

Speaker 16 So, lots of the early doctrine that we get and lots of the early theological debates about medieval Christianity come from Justinian's court.

Speaker 16 What we think of largely as a lot of Roman law and jurisprudence is what Justinian distills it down to.

Speaker 16 And it again emerges from his court. So, Justinian law will form the basis of European civil law for more than a millennium after him.

Speaker 16 You know, it's still the basis of some systems of civil law in Europe today.

Speaker 16 So here is a man who is, you know, literally sitting in his office with a bit of paper designing the medieval world.

Speaker 14 So interesting, isn't it? God, when you put it like that, it's

Speaker 14 he is seismic for that change and everything he goes to as well. It almost feels like

Speaker 14 part of it, he is hearkening back to the ancient Roman heyday and reclaiming those lands, seeing him just as the clear successor, but

Speaker 14 him personally transforming the world around him.

Speaker 16 Yeah, and his background, I think, is interesting as well. You know,

Speaker 16 he comes from an incredibly impoverished family in the Balkans. His uncle goes off to the imperial court, rises in the imperial guard, calls for his nephew.

Speaker 16 You know, I can get him a job over here, get him a good education. And so he rises from complete obscurity and poverty to become the emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

Speaker 16 And there's a medieval story in that because what is the early medieval period?

Speaker 16 But the fight for the right to rule everywhere, where almost anybody, if you're smart enough or strong enough, can become a king.

Speaker 14 I would argue you can see that also, though, in the late period of ancient history as well, with usurpers and the like.

Speaker 14 But maybe, as you say, Justinian is just another, like a case of that to an extreme because of how powerful an empire he rules.

Speaker 14 It is interesting to think of whether the change from antiquity to medieval period, you know, kind of really, you really see a big spark in that during Justinian's reign and by infamous events like the Justinian plague, the plague Justinian that breaks out, because of how devastating it is, because of how something like that's, well,

Speaker 14 it is a

Speaker 14 black death plague, isn't it? Carried by the fleas on rats and it's more medieval than a plague.

Speaker 14 Well, I mean, I think, but it does, I mean, the law code and everything as well, you know, I'm no expert on this, but it does feel that you have those, that conglomeration of game-changing events that happen in his long reign, that you do see

Speaker 14 Rome is never the same again, in a way, right? Yeah.

Speaker 16 I would also concede here that the ancient world kind of never goes away in the medieval world. Medieval people would never have called themselves medieval.

Speaker 16 They wouldn't have been looking for dates like this.

Speaker 16 They see a degree of continuity and they are obsessed with ancient Rome, with the architecture, with building in stone as a projection of power that never ever goes away, particularly later in the medieval period when Western Europe comes back into contact with ancient Greek and Roman writings after the Crusades.

Speaker 16 They are absolutely obsessed with all of that. And we get Romanesque architecture, building castles and churches because they're obsessed.

Speaker 16 So it isn't that people suddenly turn away from the ancient world. The question is, is this a medieval man living in an ancient world or an ancient man living in a medieval world?

Speaker 14 That's so interesting.

Speaker 16 And I would argue that he is a medieval man who is reshaping his empire to fit with the new medieval world that is around him.

Speaker 14 I think that's spot on. I can see the logic of that, but I can't say I think that's spot on from a degree of authority, but I can see what you mean.

Speaker 14 It is the case, isn't it? When I think of Justinian, I might also think of the Nicariots. But, you know, of course, that's a chariot race, isn't it?

Speaker 14 It's from a chariot race, and you think chariots think ancient Rome. So

Speaker 14 you can see the ancient element still there.

Speaker 14 I think Belisarius is sometimes dubbed what like the last Roman, but there's always so many people who are dubbed the last Roman, but in like kind of I think a classical ancient sense, that last attempt to retake those former Roman lands in the heartlands of North Africa and Sicily and Italy, and the success it brings.

Speaker 14 You know, for a time, they retake Rome. I think 536, so symbolically

Speaker 14 60 years after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus. So there's a clear link there, something very symbolic there.

Speaker 14 An idea to say, oh no, we're going to get things back to normal. You know, you've had these Ostrogoths in Italy, but we're back now.

Speaker 16 I think with Justinian, what you get is a desire to still connect with all of that from the past, but a recognition that there's now a new way of doing everything.

Speaker 14 The fact that, you know, it doesn't last because you have all those other new powers who are much stronger than they were before, north of the Alps, the Lombards and Franks and so on and so forth, who, you know, kind of make that not be the case, that they lose Italy quite soon afterwards.

Speaker 14 I think I can give you this. I think so.
I think that's more.

Speaker 14 I have no regrets about doing 541 AD, the worst year in history, on the ancients podcast, because I think you can say that there is still an ancient world before the bubonic plague.

Speaker 16 And I think Justinian is an interesting figure to hang a discussion around

Speaker 16 the fact that that transition from ancient to medieval must happen in different places at different times at different paces.

Speaker 16 Again, we're not talking about, you know, the sun goes down on one day on an ancient world and rises on a medieval one.

Speaker 14 Yeah, completely. Should we do the next one? Let's go for it.
Oh, this should be quite easy. Charlemagne.
I'm not claiming him. You don't want to.
No, not at all.

Speaker 14 When is he? How much further on is he?

Speaker 16 So we're around 800 here. He's his coronation in the year 800.
And I guess why he's in there is because he will have himself crowned as a Roman Emperor.

Speaker 16 You know, he is making the first maybe serious effort to reconfigure, to rebuild what was once the Western Roman Empire.

Speaker 16 You know, he has what we would call today all of kind of Germany to France and all of the bits and pieces in between.

Speaker 16 He brings all of those back together and is keen to identify himself as a successor to Rome. So clearly in Charlemagne's mind, the ancient world still means something.

Speaker 16 It's something that you still want to recapture. It still symbolizes power and authority and continuity and certainty and strength and all of those things that a king and emperor will want to project.

Speaker 16 But again, is he just using all of those notions to give him a step up in the medieval world?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I think that just further affirms that this is very much a medieval period because they're hearkening back to the memory of something now gone.

Speaker 14 And also, who crowned Charlemagne? The Pope. The Pope, exactly.
Something completely alien to ancient rulers, I'd say. So I'm not disputing that at all.
He's clearly a medieval figure.

Speaker 14 I guess one of of the big titans of early medieval history, right?

Speaker 16 He is. He's absolutely huge.
And, you know, engaging in thoroughly medieval battles, what we would recognise as medieval battles.

Speaker 14 How big are these battles? Are they on the scale of ancient Rome?

Speaker 16 Probably not. No, we're in a time period.
It's hard to get numbers for medieval battles. It's probably easier for some Roman battles than it is for some medieval battles.

Speaker 16 They're notoriously bad at giving us numbers. And so it gets really, really difficult to pin them down.

Speaker 16 But you're in this kind of period, you're quite often talking about handfuls of knights on horses. You know, it could be 20, 30 people who are the serious elite involved in the fighting here.

Speaker 16 So you're talking about small-scale battles most often. Charlemagne does, you know, he's, again, he's working to push back the Islamic presence in southern Iberia.

Speaker 16 So, you know, he's recognizing that there are boundaries to his empire and wanting to push back and push around. I think he's using the ancient world, but he's a medieval man.

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Speaker 14 I think this also harkens to another thing that I commonly associate with medieval versus ancient which is the clear decline in army size and like the complexities of certain military exercises and campaigns now I can't say that you know for everything because I don't know but from an outsider looking in it feels like when you get to the early medieval period that the armies they're not on the scale of earlier Roman imperial expeditions against Parthia or Sasanian Persia and the like which as you said is that testament to that new

Speaker 14 I'm not using the dreaded f-word feudal word at all there because that's me being an idiot um but maybe you know the systems of power right i mean you can use the f-word um

Speaker 16 but i think the key thing there is that the key marker is that rome has a standing army paid for by the empire Throughout the medieval period, you simply don't have countries till very, very late having anything that resembles a standing army.

Speaker 16 You're raising the feudal levies. You're calling in people who owe you allegiance and owe you military service to act as your army.

Speaker 16 So there's a clear divide there, I think, between between the ancient world where regimes had standing armies that they trained and paid for and could deploy wherever they wanted to, and the medieval world where this is a much more kind of makeshift,

Speaker 16 you don't incur the cost of a huge standing army.

Speaker 14 Do you think that's also what makes Belisarius's expedition to North Italy and Italy ultimately

Speaker 14 so remarkable? Because it feels like an ancient history military expedition, you know, but in a changing world.

Speaker 14 But this idea that you could send i mean you might not see until maybe the crusades later or something like that where you can get an army from a power you know to ferry across the mediterranean and then start a campaign afresh i'm hearkening back also to doing rome two total war and the belisarius campaign but i hope you know what i mean it's that idea that such an idea may feel

Speaker 14 unfathomable to early medieval periods. I'm sure there are like the Normans and Sicily might be a contrast, but I don't know.

Speaker 16 But it does lean into, again, what we're saying: that the ancient world hasn't gone away.

Speaker 16 People are recognizing that there's a need to do things in a new and different way, but that doesn't mean you can't try the old stuff.

Speaker 16 You know, throughout the medieval period, the prevailing military wisdom is Vegetius from the end of the Roman Empire.

Speaker 16 You know, they will completely and utterly lean on him till the end of the medieval period. So there is still a recognition that the ancient world knew how to do some things.
Very true.

Speaker 14 All right, well, let's keep going on. Okay, this is an interesting one.
Emperor Constantine. So early fourth century.

Speaker 16 Wait, did you just steal Charlemagne?

Speaker 14 Yeah, sorry, I did. My bad.
That's yours. Yeah, that wouldn't look good, would it? You've got your three there.
You've got Justinian, Charlemagne, and Battle of Tours. Okay, good.

Speaker 14 I've got my pal here. Yes, Emperor Constantine.

Speaker 14 What main achievements? Yes, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, what's the most associated with Christianity?

Speaker 14 And it will always be debated, you know, why he embraces Christianity, the Milvian Bridge, the Cairo story, Eusebius, and so on.

Speaker 14 But he does. He's part of the Tetrarchy, that rule of four that I mentioned earlier, but then after a series of civil wars, becomes the sole ruler of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.

Speaker 14 Obviously his other big legacy is the founding of Constantinople, the renaming of Byzantium to Constantinople and then making his own seat of power. Although it will not

Speaker 14 straight away be like the great center of the Roman Empire. Once again, David Gwynne, encyclopedia on this stuff,

Speaker 14 saying how Theodosius the Great, so much later in the fourth century, is more that Constantinople is clearly the center. But the question here is:

Speaker 14 Does he lay the foundations, I guess, for the Eastern Roman and the Byzantine Empire?

Speaker 16 I've been tempted controversially to make a hard play for Constantine.

Speaker 9 Would you?

Speaker 14 Interesting. So you're going to make a play for three, two, eights, you know,

Speaker 16 in that, what is the medieval period but the story of the emergence and the ascendancy of the Roman church. The adoption of Christianity is the beginning of that process.

Speaker 16 And when I said earlier that, you know, as far as I'm aware, you know, Rome has this economy that doesn't kind of produce and export anything.

Speaker 16 The sudden realization that it needs to produce and export something comes along. And what does it export? It exports religion, Christianity.
And who starts that? Constantine does.

Speaker 16 Here is a man who is realizing that Rome needs to change.

Speaker 16 And here is the man who gives it its main export.

Speaker 14 He was a man who realized that Rome needs to change, even though Christians are just like 5% of the empire's population at the time.

Speaker 14 He gets ahead of his time.

Speaker 14 David Potter, I interviewed one of the first interviews I ever did on the podcast, but I remember him saying this, mentioning how he thinks Constantine was hedging his bets.

Speaker 14 You know, you'll see Coyne's, you know,

Speaker 14 his clear link to Christianity, only gets baptized when he's on his deathbed, so in the 330s. You also have Coins of Constantine, I think it was with Solinvictus and the like.

Speaker 14 So it's, I'd still say it's a transitional faith. I get what you mean.

Speaker 16 But he's also set in motion

Speaker 14 the things that will ultimately define the medieval period he does i think you could do a legacy of constantine and that would be medieval because he's such a big figure i couldn't say i would not be allowed to get away with saying that constantine the great is a medieval figure ahead of his time because he's still very much in that imperial system he reverts to one-man rule of the entire empire and he's successful largely because there aren't any big threats from the persians or on the rhine at that time i'd also say someone who's you know there's a couple of other kings around him until he beats them up and becomes sole ruler is very medieval.

Speaker 14 Would you?

Speaker 14 Well, yeah, yeah, but Rome also has precedence for doing that with, you know, rival claimants for the throne. You've got so many civil wars.

Speaker 16 I just feel like you're getting too many here.

Speaker 16 Just making a bid for Constantine.

Speaker 14 Put them in the middle.

Speaker 14 In the middle. All right, fine.
You'd have to think very carefully how you did a gold medieval episode about Constantine the Great. That's all I'll say.

Speaker 16 Otherwise, you'd ambush me in the office again.

Speaker 16 You did what?

Speaker 14 This is a very interesting one, though. 628, 630s, West Asia, which,

Speaker 14 you know, is the Arab conquests. The rise of Islam.

Speaker 14 Would you like to say something first about it?

Speaker 16 I think this is perhaps one of the most interesting things because I think lots of people will immediately think that has to be medieval.

Speaker 14 Medieval.

Speaker 16 But the rise of Islam.

Speaker 16 on the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire is fascinating because the medieval world, like I say, after the Crusades, when the medieval world in Western Europe comes back into contact with

Speaker 16 lots of the teachings of Rome and Greece, they get that from their Muslim enemies.

Speaker 16 And I think the Muslims would argue there's this kind of mini-enlightenment in Western Europe when all of that knowledge and power comes back.

Speaker 16 I think Muslims in the Near East would argue that they never forgot all of that ancient wisdom in the way that Western Europe had.

Speaker 16 They come into contact with the Eastern Roman Empire, and as far as they're concerned, it's still the Roman Empire.

Speaker 16 I think there are lots of ways, as much as I hate shooting myself in the foot, I think there are lots of interesting ways in which the Arab world has a stronger connection to the ancient world than medieval Europe does by this point.

Speaker 14 It's interesting because they say we're doing that geographic shift, aren't we? This is the first one where we're kind of talking beyond Europe and the Mediterranean basin.

Speaker 14 And you do make the point how, you know, before that,

Speaker 14 you have a situation in West Asia that has been there for centuries. The fact that you've got west of the Euphrates, the Romans, and east of the Euphrates, the Persians, right?

Speaker 14 And it's been that kind of fighting back and forth for centuries, whether it's Sasanians, Parthians, well, those are the main two with the Romans, aren't they?

Speaker 14 So it is very interesting that you have that context of, you can argue, two ancient superpowers.

Speaker 14 So when we did do this episode on the ancients recently we kind of framed it as as such you know this is the story of the fall of one of those superpowers in the sasanian persians and also the continued well you know the the decline of another one west of euphrates and the story how that power balance

Speaker 14 two superpowers ruling mesopotamia syria area

Speaker 14 that thing that's been there forever and people expected you know, would just return to as it had been before, is completely derailed by the Arab conquests, by the taking of Persia, by the uniting of both sides of the Euphrates under one calibration.

Speaker 16 So I think the tricky thing is, if you said 635 and the rise of Islam, people would say medieval. If you said a rising Arab superpower that fights the Persian Empire and the Roman Empire,

Speaker 16 that sounds incredibly ancient.

Speaker 14 I think it stretches both, which once again shows how permeable medieval ancient is, and and you can't put a direct date on it.

Speaker 14 But the fact is, you know, the spread of Islam so quickly and those armies after that, Egypt, and then, as you mentioned earlier, all the way ultimately to Morocco and southern Spain, that is clearly medieval.

Speaker 16 So if we've conceded Constantine belongs somewhere in the middle, do we think this probably belongs somewhere in the middle as well?

Speaker 14 Yeah, go on then, I think so. But it's funny, isn't it? Once again, it shows how you've got someone from the fourth century there, someone from the seventh century there.

Speaker 14 I will always say that Constantine is still ancient, but I can see the conception of it potentially being there. But last one is go to a quick fire.

Speaker 14 A bit of a curveball, but we've been talking about how we've been focusing on Europe and West Asia. Mesoamerica.
Does ancient medieval crossover

Speaker 14 apply to Mesoamerica? I don't think it can. I don't think it can either.

Speaker 16 It's so tricky because I think if you said Aztecs and Mayans, people would think you're talking about ancient civilizations.

Speaker 14 Oh, I disagree. I think Aztecs know because they have direct contact with the Spanish.

Speaker 14 Aztecs and Inca, I would never, I would hesitate against doing on the ancients podcast because I think it's so, you know, it's within 600, 700 years or so, isn't it? Yeah. But the others, yes.

Speaker 16 I don't know.

Speaker 16 But it's tricky then to put a date on when do you medievalize that because you can talk, you know, late 15th century when Europeans arrived, but that's suggesting that somehow the Europeans are bringing something new and brilliant rather than destroying what's already there.

Speaker 16 So I think

Speaker 16 South America and the Americas are one of those places where it's really, really difficult to periodize history in the same way as we do in Europe.

Speaker 14 Because you've done Cahokia, haven't you? And I must say, Cahokia in North America, you know, great urban mound and a great city, wasn't it, in North America, you know, is one I would...

Speaker 14 I have thought once in a while about doing, but I still think it was too far ahead that I hesitated to do it and say it was ancient history.

Speaker 16 It feels like it should be medieval, but that's us sitting in Europe probably projecting our ideas across.

Speaker 16 And, you know, there are places like China, Japan that we could talk about where they just simply wouldn't recognize the periodisation of history that we use in Western Europe.

Speaker 16 And I think probably the Americas is the same.

Speaker 14 But it's interesting with China and India, as other ones. China is like...
Sometimes they love a big date. You'll put like the end of the Han dynasty, so third century or the beginning of the Tang.

Speaker 14 One of those dynasties, that's the medieval period.

Speaker 14 In India, they might say it's the fall of the Guptas.

Speaker 14 And then that from on is the time of the medieval period so it almost feels like there's more clear-cut because of that Eurasian landmass you know and there is connection I think that that it's more easy to put a pinpoint between ancient medieval with India and China whereas Mesoamerica

Speaker 16 different yeah yeah I think China the Tang dynasty in the seventh century starts to feel very very medieval um that very quickly moves its way

Speaker 16 the principles of that to Japan as well and they get the taika reforms in Japan in the kind of mid-7th century and it starts to feel much more like a feudal

Speaker 14 what we might recognize as a medieval society but again it's just tricky to do it everywhere all at once um well that's it i will we'll put that as once again a kind of an undecided one in the middle how do you feel

Speaker 16 what's the scores the only important thing

Speaker 14 i've got three i would claim constantine but i'm going to put constantine

Speaker 14 fine we'll do a school all right all right diplomatic end to the to the chat but yeah that was good fun i think it's been really interesting and very very interesting to actually think about some people who you might think of as medieval might have actually lived before people that you think of as or events that you think of as ancient and yes just how blurry and porous that border between us is so maybe you should stop beating me up in the office and we should just be friends i know i know i'm just too competitive in that regard but no it's been great and finally we've had you on the podcast my friend and um you know it's always nice to a history hit crossover when we can especially for time period podcasts where it's more difficult to get those crossovers but it feels like a nice topic to do friendly conversation and lots of room for people to debate so let us know your thoughts in the comments because i'm sure you've got quite a lot matt it just gives me say thank you so much for taking the time absolute joy thank you treston

Speaker 14 well there you go i loved doing that discussion with matt and i hope you guys did too it was really fun really lighthearted and we'd love to hear what you think when do you think the ancient world ends and the medieval world begins?

Speaker 14 Over how large a period of time, when and where?

Speaker 14 We'd love to hear from you, so make sure to leave a comment on Spotify if you're listening there or on our brand's new Ancients YouTube channel, because this episode was filmed and it will also be up on YouTube now.

Speaker 14 My thanks also to Matt and shout out to his brilliant podcast. He is one of the hosts of the Gone Medieval podcast, also from History Hit.

Speaker 14 Now, finally, thank you to you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 14 That really helps us, and you'll be doing us a big favor. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that.

Speaker 14 Now, don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts and free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/slash subscribe. That's all from me.

Speaker 14 I'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 1 Hi, folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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