Monthly Archives: March 2023

Emperors of Rome Episode XLVIII – Trajan: Optimus Princeps is the last episode about Trajan, known as the greatest emperor since Augustus (to be honest, the others weren’t much chop). He behaved the way that the elites expected him to, he built lots of infrastructure to keep the masses happy and coming to power at the age of 42, he had neither the recklessness of youth or the sluggishness of old age. The only slight criticism of him is that he was “devoted to boys and wine” but neither of these affected his judgement so that was okay. In 113CE he embarked on war with Parthia, after an earlier foray to fix up Armenia, in order to re-establish Roman authority. At this point, the empire was stretched to its greatest expanse, and things started to unravel a bit. He died unsuspiciously after an 18 year reign. Episode XLIX – Suetonius has been referred to often during these podcasts. He was possibly born in Algeria of an equestrian family and was active during Emperor Hadrian’s time. He was mentored by Pliny and became a librarian and archivist which gave him access to the sources to write his most famous book ‘The Twelve Caesars’. He may have travelled with Hadrian, and it is thought that he may have fallen out with him at some stage. Nonetheless, he is pretty reliable as distinct from….Episode L – Historia Augusta which is a series of biographies, starting with Hadrian and going through to the late 3rd century CE with a gap in the middle. It wasn’t called The Historia Augusta at the time- that name was given to it later. It’s best to think of it as a fun text that gets more and more bizarre, with spurious supporting documents- a bit like a mockumentary. But we have to use it in the absence of other sources.

Lives Less Ordinary (BBC) I Didn’t Know I was Part of an Experiment tells the story of Helene Thiesen, who was born in Nuuk, in Greenland, in 1944. Greenland was a colony of Denmark.At the age of seven, after her father’s death, two men came to see her mother, offering an opportunity to find out “which child is the brightest”. Her mother refused twice, but in the end, she reluctantly relented. Helene was promptly sent 3500 km away to Denmark where she was placed with a foster family. She was sent back to Nuuk after a few years, but not to her mother: instead she was sent to a children’s home. When she finally reunited with her mother, she no longer spoke the same language, and her mother remarried and moved away. Helene was 50 when she found out that she was part of an experiment into changing the environment for children from Greenland and its effects on the child- a bit of a nature/nurture experiment. She still hasn’t forgiven her mother.

Take Me To Your Leader (ABC) Benjamin Netanyahu As we see the footage of huge crowds protesting on the streets after Netanyahu’s ‘reforms’ of the courts, this episode is even more relevant than on 22 February 2023 when it was released. ‘Bibi’ has served a total of 15 years as Prime Minister and his most recent stint is his third comeback, after acting as PM in 1996 (with a narrow victory over Shimon Perez) for just three years; 2009 when he came back for 12 years; and now since December 2022 in an coalition with hard-right colleagues. A ‘prophet of doom’ type politician, in the past he tended to campaign as hard right but become more centrist once he achieved power, but now he needs the cover of the hard right to avoid his own legal entanglements. He is a divisive character, and Israeli politics has splintered into for- and against- Netanyahu politicians. He fears a nuclear armed Iran as a threat, and so he has cosied up to Putin and former President Trump. Guests include Ayala Panievsky, Gates Cambridge scholar, former journalist Haaretz newspaper and research associate at ‘Molad’, The Centre for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy; Mitchell Barak, former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu (who said that he was a horrible boss) and political analyst  Dave Sharma, Australia’s former Ambassador to Israel (who is not Jewish- I assumed he was).

Rear Vision (ABC) The War in Ukraine- the military story. This is Part I of a two-part series, released as part of the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. I’d heard much of it before. Russia expected a weak response, as occurred when they invaded Crimea, but by the end of March the Russian troops were withdrawn from Kyiv. There are three elements of military strategy: Physical (i.e. troops and weapons), Intellectual and Moral. It is in effect a war of opposing political systems, and both sides are using propaganda. One difference between this war and the invasion of Crimea is the use of open source intelligence, especially aviation, and the use of autonomous systems like drones and robots.

New Books Network This came up on my New Books related to Latin America, but it’s a pretty tenuous connection. Instead, in Beyond Belief: How Pentecostalism is Taking Over the World, Australian journalist talks about her recent book of the same name, aimed at a general rather than academic readership. She defines ‘pentecostalism’ in terms of the influence of the Holy Spirit, going back to William J. Seymour in 1905, who instituted the Azusa Street Revival in about 1905. She then moves to the 1950s and Norman Vincent Peale, and then to the Jesus People of the 1960s New Age movement. A fourth wave, possibly, is now with the spread of Pentecostalism into Latin America, Korea, Brazil and Nigeria. There is no central authority, and the pentecostal churches tend to reflect the society in which they are embedded e.g. the Catholic influence in Latin America, Shamaanism in Korea. There is still an element of the prosperity gospel at play, but it’s more an emphasis on health and wealth, both of which tend to improve when people get their lives together. Pentecostals have always been good at leveraging the media. After radio in the 1950s, in the 1960s and 1970s it was cassette tapes that people could listen to in their cars. Hillsong has always used music as part of its business model. She explores the link between right-wing populism and Pentecostalism, and notes that both use entertainment and stagecraft and draw on the feeling of being ‘besieged by wokeness’.

Rough Translation This is a two-part program about smuggling pills for a medical abortion into Ukraine. Part I Under the Counter, a young German doctor, Vicki, reads of the shortage of abortion pills (mifepristone followed by misoprostol) in Ukraine. She and her boyfriend Ari find a supplier based in Africa who can source the pills from India, and then he offers a huge quantity- far more than ever anticipated. The only problem is that they have to travel through Poland, where abortion is illegal. Part II The Handoff follows this unlikely group of smugglers into Ukraine, where they learn that there are complications in both pregnancy and abortion during war time. I really enjoyed these two podcasts.

Emperors of Rome Interlude: Valerius Flaccus. I’d never heard of this Roman poet, from the Flavian period, who wrote an 8-book epic The Argonautica that retold the well known (at that time) story of Jason and the Golden Fleece. He drew fairly heavily on Apollonius of Rhodes ‘ more famous epic, but he was also strongly influenced by Virgil as well. The episode features Dr. Peter Davis. And now, back to the Emperors with Episode XLV In Trajan We Trust . Trajan was born in 53 CE in Italica in Spain. His father had been Consul, had fought in the Jewish Wars and had been governor of Syria. We don’t really know much about him before he became Emperor, because there’s a Big Black Hole of Biography. He started his military career in Syria with his father, then moved to the Rhine. He became guardian of his cousin’s children, one of whom was Hadrian- spoiler alert! He was a good choice for Emperor, because he was a successful military leader. Pliny is almost nauseating in his praise of Trajan, but he was generally regarded as virile and active. His accession to become Emperor was largely violence free (except for the murder of some potential enemies), and he promised to work well with the Senate. Episode XLVI Trajan vs Dacia sees Trajan heading off to Dacia (present day Romania), at a time when the Roman Empire was at its largest extent. Dacia was a client kingdom, headed by the Dacian king Decebalus. Trajan had a victory in the First Dacian War 101-102 CE, then headed back in 105CE when Decabalus started sabre-rattling again. Trajan built a huge bridge across the Danube as a statement of strength, and leveled the capital. The defeat of Dacia brought huge wealth into Rome, and Trajan partied with a 120-day triumph.

File on 4.(BBC) Three Friends Emily, Nadia and Christie met each other when they were admitted as 18 year olds to the Tees Esk and Wear Valley Mental Health Trust with severe mental problems. They all died within 8 months of each other, in a medical environment that did not keep them safe. Their families are left blaming themselves, and the hospital.

Lectures in History (C-Span) Gays and Lesbians in Colonial America. This lecture in a university seminar class is given by Santa Clara University professor Nancy Unger. She starts off by challenging the denial of homosexuality by many African-Americans (particularly religious African-American groups) and Africans who claim that homosexuality was “un-African”. Instead, she argues, there was an African tradition of boy-wives. She argues that in early 17th century American colonies, there was a recognition of same-sex relationships among slaves. At this early stage, there was no emphasis on reproduction as there was later, and so same-sex relationships were tolerated. As time went on, the official view was that homosexuality was unacceptable, and amongst colonists it was a capital offence. But there were only two men executed, partially because the law required two witnesses and also because there was a labour shortage at the time. She then goes on to look at case studies of gay and trans-sexual court cases. One was of Nicholas Sension in 1677, who despite his high status and marriage, had a 30 year history of homosexuality. The court case was reluctantly brought because the community was concerned that he was bringing them into disrepute. Steven Broughton was a church leader, who was voted back into his leadership position by 2/3 of the congregation when he was reported. Thomas/Thomasina Hall was declared to be both a man and a woman because of their ambiguous genitalia.

Take Me To Your Leader (ABC) Vladimir Putin I’ve heard few podcasts and seen a few documentaries since the Ukraine invasion about Vladimir Putin, but this one was particularly interesting because Hamish Macdonald talks with former (?) ABC journalist Monica Attard, who has a rather different perspective on Ukraine than we usually get. All of the guests agreed that Putin was likely to continue as President up to his death.

The Explanation (BBC) There has been much about Turkiye and Syria in the news since the recent earthquakes and so I decided to go back and review what has happened in Syria in recent years. How Syria’s Peaceful Uprising Became a Civil War takes us back to July 2000. Lina Sinjab, a BBC Middle East correspondent, explains how the conflict in her native country began. Bashar al-Assad had inherited the presidency from his father and Syria became, in effect, a dictatorship without a dictator. In 2011 the Arab Spring emerged across the Middle East, evoking a military crackdown in Syria despite the peaceful nature of the demonstrations. Russia and Iran backed the government, while the Americans backed the Kurds and Islamic groups. This U.S. support changed in 2013 when ISIS became involved, prompting the US and a coalition of Arab states to fight against ISIS. Assad used chemical weapons against his people, something that Barak Obama had seen as a ‘red line’ but no action was taken. By this time, Russia’s support for the regime was overt. A huge refugee flow ensued, cutting Syria’s population from 21 million to 6 million. Then the podcast finished with a very abrupt ending.

The Daily (NYT) A Crisis Within a Crisis in effect picks up where the previous podcast left off and asks why, after the earthquake, it has been so hard to get aid to Syria. It returns briefly to the Arab Spring, and the clampdown by the al-Assad government, and the fleeing of doctors from the country once hospitals began being targetted. Western sanctions were imposed against the as-Assad government, although the United Nations continued operating within Government-held areas with Al-Assad’s permission after agreeing to recognize the sovereignty of his government. In 2014 a UN resolution enabled the UN to send aid into areas that were not under the control of the Al-Assad govt. As a result, aid groups established bases containing workers and supplies on the border of Turkiye and Syria as a staging ground to move into Syria. This is the area that was impacted by the earthquake. It took four days for the first supplies to arrive from Turkiye to Syria, and even then it was a shipment that had been put together before the earthquake, so it contained none of the emergency supplies or help that was required. Since then Al-Assad has agreed to open two more crossing points. The Syrian government is asking for sanctions to be lifted, but the UK and US are unlikely to send direct aid. The earthquake has come at a time when the US had already begun easing sanctions, and the Syrian government had begun re-engaging.

Archive on Four (BBC) What Has Media Training Done to Government? Featuring a wealth of mainly-British political interviewers, this episode looks at the rise of ‘media training’, often conducted by former interviewers themselves. As the episode points out, media training comes from a place of fear- fear by the interviewer that they won’t get anything; fear from the interviewee that they will says something they didn’t mean to say. It is now an industry in its own right, where the journalists become celebrities themselves, making the whole field more competitive. It is marketing-oriented, and it weaponizes the unintentional.

Emperors of Rome Episode XL What is an Emperor? goes back to look at the way that the concept of ’emperor’ had changed from the time of Julius Caesar through to the death of Domitian. In that 150 years, the republic was almost back to a monarchy in all but name. Caesar was not an Emperor officially, because he was not a Princeps. He saw himself within a Republican mould, taking on the title of ‘dictator’ -itself a Republican term- and just extending his term again..and again.. and again. Augustus was the first emperor because he could veto anything, getting his powers from the Senate. The influence of the army became increasingly important, as did the power of the imperial household. Deification after death gradually became normalized. So why didn’t the Senate reassert its power? Probably because the conjunction of the interests of the military and the emperor had become normalized. Episode XLI Nerva. Nerva was one of the last Italian emperors, coming to power after Domitian was assassinated. We don’t know much about his early life but he came from a high-born consular family and was close to the imperial family- for example, his grandfather went into voluntary exile with Tiberius, although he distanced himself later. Nerva is seen as the first of the ‘five good emperors’. The senate put him forward as emperor, so there was no return to the Republic, but he never had the support of the army. The army insisted that he nominate a successor, so he named and adopted Trajan from the military ranks. He was only there for 16 months before dying of natural causes. Episode XLII is a bit different- it’s called A Lesson in Latin followed by Interlude Latin Pronunciation (Actually, I’d quite like to learn Latin). Rhiannon and Matt start by going through some common Latin phrases that are still in use today. But how do we know what Latin sounded like? Mainly from grammarians, especially Quintillian, who declared that if people spelled correctly, the pronunciation would be correct. (A bit like Spanish, really)

Kerning Cultures Viva Brother Nagi. Nagi was a Yemeni immigrant to America, where he worked in agriculture- as many Yemini immigrants do. He was born in Yemen, where he was politically active and moved to America as a 20-year-old in 1967, part of a wave of immigrants from Yemen who arrived after the 1965 Immigration Act removed quotas. There had been industrial action in the agricultural section since the 1970s, and in 1973 strikes broke out again when the Teamsters Union contracted a sweetheart deal with the growers. Nagy became a picket captain in the grape strike led by Cesar Chavez. He was beaten to death by a county sheriff outside a restaurant in Lamont California. A huge funeral march was held, and a boycott of grapes and fruits took off amongst consumers. Two years later in 1975 the law was finally changed to allow farm workers to assemble, have union representation and bargain.

Take Me To Your Leader (ABC) In this episode Hamish Macdonald looks at Mohammed bin Salman. Along with journalists Graeme Wood and Karen House, he interviews ‘Sultan’, a gay Saudi journalist, who sought and received refuge in Australia after a journalist he was ‘minding’ went rogue. MBS is the grandson of King Abdulaziz, and probably the most ‘Saudi’ amongst possible heirs as he did not have the Oxford University/Rich British life that many of his other relatives had. Young people see him as a progressive modern, but not Western, leader. In November 2017, now Crown Prince, as part of an anti-corruption purge, he ‘held’ 400 members of the elite in the Ritz Carlton Hotel and forced to repay their debts. He has developed Vision 2030 which envisions a modern, cutting edge city housing 9 million people on a 170 km. block of land. He had a close relationship with Trump, but not Biden, and he takes Putin’s calls but not Biden’s.