Hello.
>> My name is Matt Myers and I teach Roman history in
the Department of Classics and
Archaeology here at the University of Nottingham.
>> I'm making this video today to give
you a quick introduction
to the kind of things that I
cover in my teaching and my research.
>> So I'm a historian and I teach Roman history
beginning with the foundation of the city of Rome in 753 BC
and going all the way down to the end of
the Western Roman empire in 476 AD,
and actually quite a bit beyond that as well.
Within this vast period of Roman history,
the time that I'm most interested in is
the transition between republic and empire.
>> This is the period in which
the Roman world moves from being ruled by
the Senate in a semi-democratic form of government
into the empire and being ruled by emperors.
>> This is the period from the first century BC
down to the end of the first century AD.
>> Within this time-frame
what I'm most interested in is the role of violence.
>> So I spent a lot of time looking at things like warfare,
crime and punishment, and gladiatorial combat - those kind of things.
>> And I think a lot about how these issues are represented in
Roman literature, in Roman art, and
in the works of historical writers.
So I thought what I would do today is
just give you a brief introduction to the kind of things that I
look at by way of
a discussion of my three favourite books about ancient Rome.
The first of which is this one.
So this is, of course, the Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans
>> This was my first ever introduction
to Roman history back when
I was probably about eight or nine years old.
I hadn't looked at this book for a long time
and I pulled it off the shelf today and it turns out that it
is very closely aligned
to my current interests in the ancient world.
>> I think subconsciously,
I've followed the content of this book
quite closely in my teaching and my research.
As I said, I'm very interested in issues of violence,
warfare, and gladiatorial combat,
and that is, of course, something that is covered in
a lot of detail in this book.
So there we have a depiction of a battle
in Roman Britain. Here is a depiction of gladiatorial combat.
And of course, this book also
covers a lot of
the early Roman emperors
who populate the period in which I'm interested,
such as Caligula, who famously made his horse a consul
as we can see there. So this was
a very influential book in
bringing me to the study of the ancient Romans.
>> And it also introduced me to
some of my favorite ancient sources,
the first of which is this one.
So this is the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius.
>> Suetonius is Roman biographer and
his Twelve Caesars are lives of the early Roman emperors,
beginning with Julius Caesar and
ending with the emperor Domitian.
>> Now, what makes Suetonius really valuable as
historical source is that he was not just a writer,
but also a politician.
>> He was the secretary to the emperor Hadrian,
and this meant that he had
unprecedented access to
the imperial archives and to court documents.
So he had access to a lot of
primary sources that modern historians just don't have.
This makes him incredibly valuable
for studying this period of Roman history.
But he's also really interesting from
a literary perspective, because he's not afraid to bring
in rumor and unsubstantiated claims,
if it will help him depict his subjects in a certain way.
>> And so issues of
literary style and characterisation are just as important in
studying Suetonius as they are in
studying literary genres such as poetry and drama.
>> And Suetonius is not just important as a
historical source, but also as a piece of literature.
And the same is true of other ancient historians,
and particularly, my favourite ancient historian, Tacitus.
>> You can see just how much I love Tacitus by the amount
of sticky notes sticking out my books there.
>> So, Tacitus is a Roman historian
who is writing in around the same time period as Suetonius,
maybe five to ten years earlier.
>> And he deals with pretty much the same period of history.
>> He's writing about the early Roman emperors. His Annals is
his most famous work and that deals with
the emperors from Augustus to Nero.
>> But what I want to talk to you about today is Tacitus' Histories,
which, I think, are often overlooked,
but are actually some of his best work.
The Histories are a narrative of
the aftermath of the suicide of the emperor Nero.
So, in June of AD 68,
the Emperor Nero was the victim
of a conspiracy and he was forced to commit suicide.
This plunged the Roman world into
a year-long destructive and bloody civil war,
because no could decide who was going to take over
and become the next emperor.
>> There were four different people
who claimed the throne and they
fought this civil war
throughout the Roman Empire and Italy itself.
This is what is now called the year of the four emperors.
>> And this is the subject of
the surviving portions of Tacitus' Histories.
>> What I find most fascinating about
Tacitus narrative of this war in the Histories is
his focus on the emotional experiences of the participants.
>> So Tacitus is a really valuable source
for the insight he gives us into
people's reactions to, and experiences of,
violence and warfare in ancient Rome.
Some of his most poignant and moving passages
depict soldiers in the aftermath of battles,
lamenting the loss of life,
and the senseless violence that has taken place.
>> And often what is really interesting
is that the reactions of these soldiers are
contrasted with the emotional state
and the reactions of their generals
and commanders, who tend to exult in the violence
and are unable to see the inherent sadness in the situation.
So Tacitus gives us a really interesting insight into
the differing reactions to violence
among different levels of society in ancient Rome.
>> So I could talk to you about Tacitus
all day and maybe will in another video,
but for now I think we'll leave it there.
I will just end by saying that
I hope to see as many of you as possible very soon in Nottingham.