Monthly Archives: July 2022

History of Rome. I can’t believe it- I’m nearly at the end! Episode 162 Opening the Floodgates sees Flavius Claudius Constantinus, a Roman general who rose to power in Brittania, declaring himself Constantine III (even though he was no relation to the other Constantines), overthrowing Gratian and taking all his troops to Gaul (bad mistake) where the Barbarians were running amok. Although we talk about ‘The Barbarians’, they were not a single group, and Constantine was able to pick off some of the Barbarian leaders. Stilicho was ordered by Honorius to go after Constantine, which also diverted attention away from the Barbarian threat. Alaric, the Goth general, and his troops had been dispensed with after the death of Arbogast, although he was able to demand and receive compensation. Meanwhile, Arcadius in Constantinople died, leaving a vacancy because his son Theodosis II was too young. There were rumours that Stilicho was angling to get control of Constantinople, and Honorius believed those rumours. There was a revolt and Stilico, the Vandal, was executed – one of the last few competent leaders.

Meanwhile in Episode 163 Theodosius’ Walls we return to the eastern part of the empire. The Eastern provinces were more stable than the western ones and the truce with the Sassanids held. Arcadius and his wife Eudoxia reigned, but as a weak emperor, he was strongly influenced by the Bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom. John was very devout, very ascetic and very critical of Eudoxia. Eudoxia tried to get John banished, but mob unrest and an untimely earthquake meant that he was brought back. She succeeded the next time she tried to get him banished, but then she died of a pregnancy-related illness. Into the power vacuum stepped the Praetorian Prefect Anthemius. His legacy lives on in the Theodosian Walls that he constructed, comprising three layers of stone wall, each taller than the next, to repel invaders from Constantinople. Enough of the East- let’s go back to the messy West. With Stilicho dead, Olympius stepped in to the vacancy and ordered the murder of the Goths, who fled to Alaric and boosted the numbers in his army. Alaric invaded Italy (the Romans were too scared to confront them) and went straight to Rome, more as a bargaining chip to ensure his recognition within the Empire, rather than with a view to sacking Rome (at this stage). When Honorius and Olympius refused, Alaric invaded Rome again, so Honorius decided to recognize the usurper Constantine III to bolster his forces. Alaric lessened his demands but was refused again, so he went back a third time. He chose Priscus Attalus to be ’emperor’ (something not really within his power to do) and this time he really did sack Rome.

Episode 164- The Sack of Rome. So Constantine III found himself recognized as an emperor at last, but there was rebellion in Spain and Britain went its own way once Constantine left, taking all his troops with him. There was a battle between Constantine and Honorius, which Honorius won. Alaric was forced to depose his hand-picked Attalus, who was getting too big for his boots- but he’ll be back. And so we come to the sack of Rome, which was last sacked 800 years ago. It wasn’t a complete scorched-earth type sack: Alaric was a Christian, just like Honorius was, and he declared churches and the people sheltering in them off-limits for any wanton sacking. The people of Rome were plunged into despair, and many became refugees, leaving only 20,000 people in Rome by the Middle Ages. Alaric went to North Africa for grain supplies (that his ‘friend’ Attalus had been holding out on) but a storm caused him to turn back. In 410 Alaric died and his brother Ataulf took over. Meanwhile Constantius III (a general under Honorius) was appointed in 411 to take down Constantine III (really, this is getting too confusing for words). Constantine III found himself beseiged by Constantius, and he surrendered when promised that he could live. Tricked you!- they killed him anyway. This left Constantius III but new usurpers were popping up in a game of whack-a-mole, and the Goths were heading for Ravenna.

Rear Vision (ABC) Papua New Guinea’s Elections. It has been disturbing to the see the violence in PNG during their recent elections. But what a challenge- the elections take place over three weeks, there are literally hundreds of different languages, and electors vote for the ‘big man’ in their village, or people who are linked to them by locality or family. The political system is based on the Westminster system, but the elections have been becoming increasingly corrupted. There are no parties as such, united by policy priorities, but instead they have shifting coalitions of interests.

Rough Translation (NPR) Miles to Go Before I’m Me looks at female long-haul truck drivers in America. Jess Graham started truck driving with her 10 year old daughter, in order to escape an abusive domestic relationship. Eventually she kept driving, without her daughter, but found that it was a lonely job, and the tolerance and friendship towards her that her young daughter had attracted, had dissipated. Meanwhile Brandie Diamond, another long-haul driver, found the mobility made it possible for her to transition – although being ‘outed’ by another truck driver expedited her decision to live as a transsexual.

History Extra Fifteen minutes of fame: Marie Tharp. You’ve never heard of her either? Born in 1920, she was an American-born geologist and ocean cartographer, and she was the person who proposed the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics, radical ideas at the time. She was working in a male-dominated profession where her name was mysteriously omitted from jointly-written research papers. she was not allowed to go on research ships, and so she had to work on-shore analysing data collected by her colleague Bruce Heezen with whom she had a love/hate relationship professionally. She has received more recognition posthumously than she received while she was alive.

The Latin American Podcast. I haven’t listened to this podcast in ages, and when I returned to it, I found that it has been discontinued since 2021. I wonder what happened? Anyway, the The Conquest of Peru Part I starts off by pointing out that Spanish colonization depended on individuals who proposed expeditions in order to enrich themselves and then gathered the funding. They were often from the Army and had served on other expeditions before heading off on their own. This episode introduces Diego de Almagro, Hernando de Luque and of course Francisco Pizarro – who is the best known of the three. Episode 2 Westwards goes through the two previous expeditions from Panama. The first retraced the footsteps of Pascual de Andagoya who had had to abandon his expedition from Panama after falling into a river and becoming seriously ill. This expedition sailed down the coast of Colombia, but had to be abandoned because they ran out of supplies. His second expedition also went south, where Pizarro met a tribe that had been conquered by the Incas. His expedition was thwarted by the new Governor of Panama so Pizzaro went back to the King, who gave him six months to raise the manpower he needed. He had to inveigle his two brothers into the group of 180 who sailed off, not strictly within his charter. Almagro and de Luque, who were waiting back in Panama, distrusted Pizzaro, suspecting him for having presented himself as the leader and downplaying their role. (Which he probably did)

History of Rome Episode 159 The Divine Winds. Arbogast, Theodosius and Eugenius finally confronted each other at the Battle of the Frigidus River in 394 CE. Arbogast and Eugenius’ troops wore pagan symbols (perhaps- all of the information for this is pretty dicey) but it was not a religious war- it was about power. Arbogast had taken control of the terrain, and Theodosius’ troops were restive because the Goths who made up their ranks felt that they had been used as cannon fodder. It all looked as if Theodosius was doomed until the Bora winds blew up, making it hard for Arbogast and Eugenius’ troops to fight because it was blowing directly into their faces. Eugenius was captured and executed, and Arbogast did the right thing and committed suicide, which left Theodosius the last emperor standing. He was staunchly anti-pagan, so the Altar of Victory disappeared at this time, never to reappear. However, in mid 395 Theodosius died, leaving his 16 year old son Arcadius and 11 year old son Honorius in charge. They were too young to rule in their own right, so they were being manipulated by advisors- Stilicho and Rufinis the Pretorian Prefect. How to judge Theodosius? Well, he wasn’t truly great, and as an anti-pagan, he allowed Bishop Ambrose a degree of autonomy which was to set up relations between church and state for centuries. His decision to deal with the Goths through diplomacy saved the Empire, but it had serious consequences.

Episode 160 East Vs West Rufinis was assassinated by local enemies, and Arcadius’ wife Eudoxia was becoming more powerful than her weak husband. Now the empire was divided three ways: East, West and Constantinople. Taking advantage of the power vacuum, there was a Visigoth uprising in 395, led by Alaric. Meanwhile a Berber General in North Africa, Gildo, was a supporter of Theodosius and he began withholding grain shipments. Stilicho, who was by now Honorius’ father-in-law used Gildo’s brother Mascezel to fight against him (the two brothers were enemies) Gildo committed suicide and the eunuch Eutropius, another court official, had himself declared consul. Arcadius just disappears from the scene. Really, I’m losing track of all this. Suffice to say Arcadius and Honorius are too weak as emperors, and the officials are taking advantage of it.

Episode 161 The Swamps of Ravenna. In 402 Alaric, leader of the Goths goes on the offensive and crosses the Alps unchallenged because the Western troops were engaged elsewhere. He mounted a siege of Milan, not because he thought he would succeed, but to spook Honorius. This worked, and Stilicho moved the seat of the western court from Milan to Ravenna where it was surrounded by swamps. And then the Huns and Allamani were on the move again – the Barbarians are at the gate!!

File on 4 (BBC) Ukraine: War Stories was released on 15 March 2022 and so it captures the early weeks of the war on Ukraine. The BBC has arranged for ‘ordinary people’ to record audio diaries on their phones as their cities are bombed and families torn apart. So we hear model and dancer Mari Margun in Chernihiv who starts off confidently, but becomes increasingly shattered as the bombs fall; we hear a young woman just about to give birth, crowded into the basement of a maternity hospital; we hear of a young beautician learning to fire an AK47- the only weapon she has ever held; we hear a doctor reluctant to leave the children’s hospital until all the children are taken care of, and we hear the fear of families being separated with some desperate to leave, others too frightened to leave.

New Books Network. I subscribe to several feeds on the New Books Network, and I noticed on the Australian and New Zealand section that Marilyn Lake had recorded an interview on Nov 16 2021 about her not-so-new book Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform. I was rather startled that it appeared on the ‘New Books in Native American Studies’ section, with an American interviewer who seemed rather unprepared to discuss anything other than the American connections in the book. It’s one of those books that I know I should read, but probably won’t- and at $61.00 it has always been prohibitively expensive. (It is available as an e-book at SLV). This interview sums up the book pretty well, I think. She starts the interview talking about progressivism, which was embraced by both Australia and U.S. who saw themselves as ‘new’ countries (dispossession of 60,000 year old custodianship in Australia notwithstanding) with a strong political subjectivity of seeing themselves as white, pioneering men (largely) on the frontier. Exclusion was built into progressivism, and in Australia’s case it was baked into a form of state socialism and maternalism. Her book examines progressivism through particular individuals like Charles Pearson and Alfred Deakin, and the challenge that rose in both US and Australia in the early 20th century when indigenous people challenged progressivism to recognize cultural difference and the importance of the past, using the language of Woodrow Wilson’s ‘self-determination’.

Strong Songs. When I realized it was July, I wondered if there was going to be a Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever in Melbourne this year because I was interested in doing it (lack of fitness, complete inability to dance and sore knees permitting). Short answer- not on 31 July, when it seems to be held elsewhere. This started me thinking about what a complex song Wuthering Heights is, but I lack the music theory to explain why. So I turned to Kirk Hamilton’s recent episode on Wuthering Heights, which he actually recorded some time ago but has repeated because of the recent success of ‘Running Up That Hill’. It’s a very American-centric recording (he had barely heard of Kate Bush) and he had never read Wuthering Heights. Nonetheless, he gives a good breakdown of the instrumentation and musical shifts in the song, using terminology far beyond me. Actually, I’ve never been able to understand the words in Kate Bush’s song when she sang it, and when I looked at them more carefully, it’s hard to believe that it was written by an 18 year old:

Out on the wily, windy moors /We’d roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy /Too hot, too greedy

How could you leave me /When I needed to possess you?
I hated you, I loved you, too

Bad dreams in the night /They told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my Wuthering, Wuthering,Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy /I’ve come home, I’m so cold/ Let me in your window

Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely/ On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot/ Falls through without you

I’m coming back love, cruel Heathcliff
My one dream, my only master

Too long I roam in the night/ I’m coming back to his side to put it right
I’m coming home to Wuthering, Wuthering Wuthering Heights

Ooh, let me have it/ Let me grab your soul away
Ooh, let me have it/ Let me grab your soul away
You know it’s me, Cathy

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy/ I’ve come home, I’m so cold /Let me in your window

New Books in Latin American Studies. Bedlam in the New World. Most of the books in this podcast are academic texts published in the US, and not likely to be readily available in Australia – and if they are, they are usually prohibitively expensive. So this podcast is a good way of becoming familiar with the books without reading them. Christina Ramos was originally a historian of science and medicine and it sounds as if she was rather railroaded into Latin American history. Bedlam in the New World: A Mexican Madhouse in the Age of Enlightenment tells the story of Mexico City’s oldest public institution for the insane, the Hospital de San Hipólito, founded in 1567 by the Catholic Church. It finally closed in 1910 when a secular asylum was opened. Other historians and theorists have spoken about the medicalization of madness, and the use of the asylum as a form of social control, but her book looks at the relationship between religion and the asylum. Over such a long period of time, the Church moved from an idea of madness as a form of bewitchment or possession to a view of it as illness, and this played out through the activities of the Inquisition which wanted to probe into issues of intent and veracity – concepts not usually considered in asylums. Hospital records can be bald and bureaucratic, but the Inquisition’s rich records capture the voices of people who appeared before it. She speaks of the Spanish Enlightenment, which I confess I had never thought of before and closes her book at the point where the medical model took over from the spiritual model in the early 20th century.

Rear Vision (ABC) Zero COVID in China: the social, economic and political cost looks at the continuing policy of lockdown that China is following, after the rest of the world has decided to ‘live with COVID’. At the moment it seems that China’s government is just as ideological by not wanting to give up on its success in quashing COVID during 2020, as Western governments are in their determination to shut their eyes and chant ‘COVID-normal’. The inactivated vaccines produced by the Chinese government are less effective than MRNA, especially against Delta and Omicron, and there has been no herd immunity developed. They started with vaccinating front-line workers rather than the elderly, so there is a very large group of vulnerable citizens. Despite the disruption to the economy internally and supply chains globally, there is no sign of a change in policy, with the Chinese government cancelling the 2023 Asian Cup which was going to be held there.

History of Rome. Episode 156 Jockeying for Position. The three forces of Maximus, Theodosius and Valentinian were fairly evenly balanced. They could each hold their own, but were not strong enough to overthrow the others. This state of balance meant that most of their actions were PR stunts backed by diplomacy. Once Bishop Ambrose arose in Milan, both Maximus and Theodosius knew how powerful he was, and both positioned themselves as defenders of the Nicene Creed- in fact Theodosius became a bit fanatical about it all, but at this stage he just went after Arians, rather than pagans generally. Maximus wanted to show his chops too, so he ordered executions for heresy (which Ambrose opposed) and ordered the closure of Arian churches in Milan. Valentinian and his mother Justina were Arians, which was a bit awkward as they were based in Milan, with the strongly anti-Arian Ambrose. There was a stand-off between Ambrose and Valentinian and his mother over the occupation of a church, and in the end Valentinian and his mother Justina fled Milan.

Episode 157 Only the Penitent Man Shall Pass sees Valentinian (and Mum) and Theodosius joining forces in a war against Maximus. Maximus’ troops eventually handed him over and he was beheaded. Now Theodosius had to face Ambrose and reached out to him, but Ambrose was stubborn. There was an anti-Semitic uprising by monks that Ambrose supported. Theodosius humbly went to the Senate to shore up his authority but his position was undercut by the Massacre of Thessalonica (Greece) where imperial troops violently put down unrest over the arrest of a chariot racer over an alleged homosexual rape. When the general was killed, Theodosius ordered the slaughter of the crowd at the next chariot race. He regretted his decision, and tried to countermand it, but it was too late- although all of the details about this massacre are murky. Ambrose took the high moral ground and announced that he could no longer associate with Theodosius until the emperor made a personal apology. In the end, Theodosius grovelled and prayed – so Ambrose won. This is seen by some as a watershed moment that emphasized the Church’s power over the soul. Once forgiven, Theodosius turned his attention to stamping out paganism – and this may (or not) have been responsible for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria (no-one really knows who destroyed it).

Episode 158 An Imperial Suicide When Theodosius finally left Milan to go back to the east, he appointed General Arbogast to mind the shop, even though Valentinian was by now twenty years old. When Arbogast began making his own appointments of minister, Valentinian became depressed over his lack of power and committed suicide. Even though this was convenient for Arbogast, he probably wasn’t behind it, because as a Frank, he couldn’t have become emperor anyway. When no news came about who should be Valentinian’s successor, Arbogast named Eugenius, who had noble links. Eugenius set about reinstating pagan practice and restored the pagan Temple of Venus and Roma and the Altar of Victory, after continued petitions from the Roman Senate. It was, in effect, the last gasp of the pagan empire, even though both Arbogast and Eugenius were themselves Christians.

The Wheeler Centre. Well, it’s a video rather than a podcast, but I’ve just re-read Ruth Park’s The Harp in the South for my upcoming book group, and I found this talk by Alice Pung at the Wheeler Centre in January 2015. Actually, it was a bit too gushing for me, and I had hoped for something more critical. Pung drew on her own working-class origins to talk about Park’s treatment of class in the novel, although as the child of Vietnamese refugees, her working-class experience was very different from that of the Darcy family.

The Daily (NYT) In the wake of the terrible news on the overturning of Roe v Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court, An Abortion Rights Champion of the 1970s on Life Before and After Roe is fascinating. Fifty years ago Nancy Stearns was a NY lawyer who was preparing to mount a case in the New York court system challenging the ban on abortion in effect at that time, arguing that the impact of an unwanted pregnancy led to inequality in terms of liberty and the equal protection of the law, both of which are protected under the Constitution. However, just as the case was about to reach the court, New York legalized abortion, rendering the case moot. Roe v Wade made its argument for abortion reform on the grounds of privacy, not the Constitution (which I remember Ruth Bader Ginsberg also thought was a weakness), and as we have seen, an originalist can reject ‘privacy’ as a right because it is not protected by the Constitution. Nancy Stearn’s argument was never tested. Nonetheless, she thinks that even her arguments would be overthrown under the current Supreme Court, and she urges people to keep fighting even though she doesn’t think that she will live long enough to see safe abortions re-established in the United States.

Lives Less Ordinary (BBC) You probably think you don’t know Abi Morgan, but if you are an ABC viewer, you probably do. She is the screenwriter of The Iron Lady, Shame, and The Split, but in this episode My husband thought I was an imposter, she felt as if she were in her own nightmarish television series. When her husband Jacob, who suffers from MS, was rapidly taken off a drug-trial, he became so gravely ill that he was placed in a medically-induced coma. When he awoke, he suffered from Capgras Syndrome, where the sufferer becomes convinced that someone close to them has been replaced by an impostor. In this case, Jacob believed that his wife was an imposter -only his wife- and they have had to rebuild their relationship to accommodate this belief.

History of Rome Podcast. Episode 153 Adrianople takes up with the Goths angry and their armies on the loose. Valens left a skeleton force of troops in the East after a shaky truce with Sharpoor, which allowed him to free up troops to head back west. He went to Constantinople where he received a frosty reception, and decided not to wait for Gratian to quell the Allemani but rode out by himself. The battle of Adrianople started prematurely, but the Romans were in front until an extra contingent of Goth cavalry arrived, and the Romans were defeated. Valens was killed in battle. Duncan refutes the idea that it was the horses that swayed the battle, noting that the Romans had been using the cavalry for 100 years. But certainly, it was the worst crisis that the Empire faced since the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE (wow- that’s going back 500 years!) and it left a 19 year old and a 7 year old as emperors. Episode 154 The Gothic War. So who are you going to call in this parlous situation? Why- a successful general, that’s who. The only problems was that Theodosius Snr, who had previously been the go-to general had been executed in Africa, probably as part of the post-Valentinian political realignment. Fortunately he had a 32 year old son, also called Theodosius, who was brought back as military commander to restore order. In 379 CE Theodosius was made Augustus of the Eastern Empire. The Gothic War was at a stalemate. The fortified cities held, but the Roman army was stretched by a general manpower shortage across the Empire, exacerbated by the big landowners who kept their best workers from the reach of the army. By continuing the Gothic War, the Roman Army was on a hiding to nothing. So when Athanaric, the King of the Goths, came to Theodosius and asked asylum from the Huns, Theodosius seized the olive branch. The Goths and Romans contracted a peace treaty which allowed the Goths to live in large groups under their own internal leadership- a big change to the old policy of scattering and Romanizing the enemy. Episode 155 The New Bishop of Rome takes us back to Brittania, where Magnus Maximus, a Roman general, led a revolt against Gratian, who had never been a soldiers’ soldier. Gratian ended up being executed by Maximus’ troops after his own troops deserted him. Maximus’ way was smoothed by Ambrose, the former Consular-Prefect, who was now the Bishop of Milan, even though he had never been a priest and was more-or-less coerced into the position. Ambrose negotiated an arrangement with Theodosius I and Valentinian II whereby Maximus was recognized as Augustus in the West.

Things Fell Apart (BBC). This final episode, made in March 2022, features an interview between Jon Ronson and Louis Theroux, two documentary makers who have a similar approach to similar themes. It’s a bit of a re-hash of the whole series, and you’d probably be better off listening to the series itself rather than this rather cozy summing up.

Sydney Writers Festival. A few weeks back I posted a review to Hanya Yanagihara’s weighty tome To Paradise. I enjoyed this podcast from 22 June 2022 where she talks about the book, and her previous equally weighty tome A Little Life. And how good that the question time was dominated by women, reflecting the demographics of a writer’s festival audience.

The Ancients (History Hit) I really enjoyed the episode The Image of God, featuring Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou, whose latest book ‘God: an Anatomy’ has been shortlisted for the Wolfson prize. She points out that the Old Testament is actually an anthology of writings from the 8th Century BCE through to the 2nd Century CE. The God we find in these writings is an anthropomorphic god, with footprints, hands and a body real enough that Moses had to go into a cave where God covered him with his hand so that Moses would only see the back of him. He was a mobile god, who could slip away from temples when they were destroyed, and his image gradually changed from a good looking, red-coloured god to an old man with a beard. I found this fascinating: I think I’ll look for the book.