History of Rome Podcast Episode 141: Blood and Water looks at the ten years of co-existence between Constans and Constantius. The religious culture wars were not dead, and the two emperors became caught up in them: Constantius leaned towards Aryanism, while Constans was pro-Nicean. Constans in the west began losing touch with reality, spending all his time hunting and banquetting, and neglecting the army for an archery corps. This isn’t going to end well. It didn’t because he was overthrown and killed by Magnentius. Constantius took on the usurper Magnetius in 350AD, finally triumphing over him in 353 when Magnetius did the right thing and committed suicide. To ensure that a rebellion didn’t break out while he was on the other side of the empire doing this, he appointed Gallus, one of the two survivors of the Massacre of the Princes, which would free him to go after Magnetius. Episode 142: You’ve Earned It. Gallus was unpopular because he cut the food supply to the citizens in order to supply the army instead, and he was persecuting pagans as a fundraiser. In the end, Constantius killed first Gallus in 354 and then Claudius Silvanus in 355. That left him the last man standing, which was good until he started looking for a successor. There was only one male blood relative left, his cousin Julian. Episode 143 Julian the Pre-Apostate traces through the early life of Julian before he became Julian the Apostate. He was a studious lad who had been orphaned when Constantius killed his father, and he was allowed a fairly free education in the Greek-speaking East until he was summoned to Milan so that Constantius could check him out. Constantius didn’t see him as a threat, so he gave permission for him to keep travelling around for his education. When he was 23 years old, he was made a junior Caesar and Julian decided that if he had to be a Caesar, he’d do it well. Despite not being well supported by his generals, he had a good victory over the Germans at the Battle of Strasbourg, which of course made Constantius a bit twitchy again. Never a good thing.
Conversations (ABC) The Caving Time Lord introduces us to Australian geochronologist Dr Kira Westaway who has been involved in archaeological discoveries of ‘the hobbit’ (Homo floresiensis) in Indonesia, and more recently, the molar from a young Denisovan girl in Laos. And to think that for so long, we thought we were the only ones here.
Rear Vision (ABC) Sri Lanka: Failed State When Ceylon became Sri Lanka in 1948 it inherited an economic completely geared to British interests. Exports of tea and rubber to Britain brought in foreign exchange but this was directed entirely towards buying in products produced elsewhere (especially Britain). Sri Lanka has teetered on the edge economically for much of its history, forced to take IMF loans with their iniquitous hard-right political policy prescriptions. Politics has been dominated by the Rajapaksa family who dominated all the major political positions, and the war against the Tamils led to a bloating of the army at huge cost. Recent events like the abrupt suspension of imports of fertilizer, the collapse of tourism, and the decision to reduce (!) taxes has led to acute shortages of food and fuel. Although many accuse China of increasing Sri Lanka’s indebtedness, the major creditor is in fact Japan.
Things Fell Apart (BBC) Most of the issues of the culture war just wash over me, but I find the issue of the relationship between transgender rights and feminism less comfortable. I’m troubled by how quickly any discussion becomes sharp and painful- but I guess that’s just because this particular ‘culture war’ topic is one that does engage me. In this episode Many Different Lives, Jon Ronson revisits the MichFest women’s festival in Michigan in 1991, where conflict arose over whether a trans woman could attend a women’s festival run completely by women, for women. The issue splintered further- what about pre-trans women? He discusses second and third wave feminism, and the origin of the term TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminism), which was not intended to be a term of abuse.
History Hit It’s rather ironic that people pay to go on a treadmill at gymnasiums. This episode The Treadmill features Rosaline Crone, a Senior Lecturer in History at the Open University who has specialised in nineteenth-century criminal justice history. The treadmill goes back to Roman times, when it was used by slaves and labourers as a form of crane for lifting heavy objects. The treadmill in a penal setting was invented by William Cubitt, who saw it as a way of giving work to prisoners in the Bridewell. He had the idea of turning the ‘hamster wheel’ type of treadmill inside out, so that the steps were on the outside. It could be- and was- used as a mill, particularly in Sydney but not in the UK. In the 1830s and 40s there was a backlash against its use, but it was revitalized from the 1860s to the early 20th century, when men could be sentenced to 6 hours on the mill. The movie ‘Wilde’ was wrong in depicting Oscar Wilde on the treadmill: like 50% of other prisoners in the 1890s, he received a medical exemption.
Australia if you’re listening (ABC) It’s not just that Australia has finally rid itself of the Coalition government, but this final episode sees light on the horizon too. The 49-year-old energy prophecy that is finally coming true goes back to 1973 and Professor John Bockris of Flinders University, who saw the dangers in the runaway production of carbon dioxide and predicted that Australia would become an energy exporter in the future, using solar energy to transform hydrogen for export overseas. This episode points out that Australia has been at the forefront of technology that has been picked up by other countries- NASA, China- but that we have sustained reputational damage from the Coalition government’s stance on climate change. In his final words of the series, Matt Bevan notes that nearly everyone he spoke to for this series said that Australia would get there in the end, but that we need vision and consistency over several decades. Perhaps, in the 2022 election, we have finally made a start.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 