Being Roman Soldiering for Softies Well, obviously not ALL Roman Soldiers were of chiselled jaws and flinty demeanour. In this episode, Mary Beard introduces us to Claudius Terentianus, who spends most of his letters moaning to his father, and asking for the most basic of equipment from sandals to swords. After a lifetime spent complaining, he eventually moves up the ranks a bit and ends up being able to retire quite comfortably.
History Extra. Native Americans: A History of Power and Survival. I’ve been listening to The Rest is History, where they are looking at Custer, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, so I thought I’d catch up on this more generalized history of Native Americans. I’ve always been mystified by the way that indigenous/European relations in Australia draw on ‘black’ language and politics of African Americans, when Native American/settler relations are far more relevant. This episode features Kathleen Duval, whose book Native Nations just won the Cundill Prize, a Canadian award for the “best history writing in English”. Her book looks at 1000 years of Native American history, starting in the year 1000 when Native American society was at the height of its organization, and comparable to cities in Europe at the time. The Medieval Warm Period made urbanization possible, and when it ended, people left the cities by preference. Native American nations were marked by trade, reciprocity and consensus decision making in confederencies that ebbed and flowed. The second part of her book goes from 1750 onwards. Spanish and Dutch colonization hadn’t changed the power balance, but this was to change from this point on. Part III looks at rebirth into nations. It sounds good.
Dan Snow’s History Hit The British Agent Who Tried to Kill Lenin tells the story of Robert Bruce Lockhart, a British diplomat, spy, and propagandist. He was born into a wealth Scots family and intended to go to Malaysia to work in the rubber industry, but was waylaid by scandal (I didn’t note what the scandal actually was!). He was restless and proudly Scottish. He ended up in Russia during WWI where he was an astute observer and politically agnostic. He became a “British Agent”, not an official position, but a conduit to the British government and their man on the spot. He was tasked with getting the Russian government back into the war after the Communist takeover and withdrawal in a plot by France, English and the US to use disaffected Latvians to overthrow the Bolsheviks. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Checka when he was betrayed by Latvian plants, but he was released under a prisoner exchange. He continued to hang around the Foreign Office where he worked as a Rogue Agent.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 