Conversations: The West Wasn't Built in A Day, the History of Roman Enslavement w/ Dr Emma Southon

Dr Emma Southon speaks with Liv about enslavement in the Roman world, and how those enslaved people built it. Find Emma's books and learn more here https://www.emmasouthon.com/. AVAILABLE NOW! The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/grouptrip.

• 0:43Speaker 01

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• 0:56Speaker 02

  Everybody, listen up.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 1:39Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby! And I am your host, Liv, here with a conversation episode. Originally, that ramble I posted about the Odyssey was really gonna be this. But no, it turned into 30 minutes of just stream of consciousness because I am... So sad and affected, but that's not what this is for. This episode is for, hmm, I won't say not sad and not affecting things, but not the Odyssey. Today's conversation is with Emma Southon, who has written a number of books about ancient Rome. Now, I don't know how this is the first time she has been on the podcast, but it is. This is for Emma's latest book, which in the

• 2:24Liv Albert?

  UK and elsewhere is called Service: How Slavery Built the Roman Empire. And in the US and probably Canada, I'm not sure, it is called Not Built in a Day. But regardless, this book is about enslavement in the Roman world and how it built the Roman world. So obviously, this is a heavier subject. Absolutely. We talk about Roman slavery broadly, which was quite a bit more organized and documented than Greek. I think the most, the biggest difference is the documentation of it all.

• 3:08Liv Albert?

  But anyway, we know so much about that. And this conversation, we recorded it, I think, a couple of months back now, but we had so, we had such a good time. I know the subject matter is heavy, but it was utterly fascinating. Emma's so interesting and so entertaining, but also the, well, the way that Roman slavery and generally how it built the empire, the way,

• 3:35Liv Albert?

  the way it resembles modern capitalism is not to be understated and was not something I was necessarily expecting. So you will hear that in my interpretations of it. So we generally, it's a great time. I'm just gonna let you sit back and enjoy this fascinating, if dark, conversation, but one that is so necessary because

• 4:00Liv Albert?

  The number one thing that gets left out of how we interpret this ancient history that we as the West used to build our entire societies, the US is explicitly based off of the Roman Republic, slavery included, it is so important that we see the truth behind these ancient ideas and these things that have been turned into propaganda. We need to see how they were actually made because it wasn't the Roman emperors who built the Roman Empire, it was the people that they enslaved. And I'm just thrilled that we have more and more books being written about this stuff and so happy to have Emma on the podcast.

• 4:55Liv Albert?

  Conversations. The West Wasn't Built in a Day: The History of Enslaved People in Rome with Dr. Emma Southon.

• 5:18Liv Albert?

  Maybe just, do you want to introduce the book and obviously how we are getting to exactly that topic? I mean, that was a very odd way of phrasing it on my part.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Basically, the book is, so the book is in North America, is Not Built in a Day: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire. And it is basically about that, which is about how incredibly important slavery was to the whole of Roman history, to the existence of the Roman Empire, and to the running of daily life in every single part of the Roman Empire. Like, no part of Roman life is untouched by slavery. It is economically, the empire is a slave economy. It cannot exist or function without having slavery in it. That's its primary

• 6:10Speaker 03

  Um, and it just just it's such a sophisticated system of slavery uh that it infiltrates every part of the Roman mindset. Um, and of the Roman experience and that largely is the point of the book. But with bringing the experience of the enslaved to the forefront, rather than talking about it in a very abstract way, which I found a lot of books um about Roman Empire that includes slavery or about Roman slavery. We'll talk about it as a very kind of abstract thing, as something that is systematic.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Or they'll talk about numbers a lot, or they'll talk about experience, like very broad experiences, like rights, a lot of talking about legal stuff.

• 6:57Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Um, that really um like removes the human from it. Um, and it is very easy to forget when you're reading that stuff, that these are all people. Um, and that they are all like that, what you're talking about is millions and millions of individuals who had very individual experiences. And so to try to bring the kind of human to the forefront of it. Um, and talk about them as embodied people. Um, so the structure of it is basically the kind of life course of an enslaved person. So it starts with how you enter slavery and all of the different ways that people entered slavery and how that changed.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  So it's like captivity or being born into it or being um kidnapped, which is surprisingly common.

• 7:47Liv Albert?

  Well, we think of it today as like human trafficking, but it's the same.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's exactly, yeah, you're like, you're traveling along or you're on a boat going across the, from one part of the Mediterranean to the other and some pirates come. And in a economy where and a system where a human is a commodity, then um if you can't be ransomed, then you can be sold. Uh, and you can find yourself being sold in slavery. Um, and then the kind of varying experiences of slavery and as many of the spaces of slavery that I could find that I could fit into the book with. Being like a thousand pages long.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  Including like how slavery was enforced. And how people were encouraged to submit to being enslaved. Through violence and through reward like carrot and stick. And then leaving slavery. So I thought I'd end on a high. And end with manumission because that is such a big topic of conversation around Roman slavery, particularly like this idea that Romans manumitted enslaved people at such a vast rate that it was somehow mitigated or ameliorated the experience of slavery and made it better.

• 9:05Liv Albert?

  Like what?

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 9:08Liv Albert?

  Oh, okay.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  And like the amount of quotes that you find particularly from like mid, like up to about the mid 20th century, I would say it's so common for American and European scholars. And, you know, people who are experts in this field to be saying things like, oh,

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Roman slavery was basically temporary or Roman slavery was, the quote that I put in the book is,

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Roman slavery was neither permanent nor while it lasted intolerable. I was like, both of those things are demonstrably untrue.

• 9:50Liv Albert?

  The Western propaganda of it all, right? Like this, this, this like, this really disturbing attempt to make us seem like the good guys in the story of history. I mean,

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Sure, we did a bit of slavery, but not like the bad kind.

• 10:08Liv Albert?

  You're like, what? I mean, yeah, there is this like idea too of like a good kind and a bad kind. And I found myself like guilty of it in a certain way where it's also, I think, important to point out differences. And I was kind of, kind of ask you a little tiny bit about this generally. But I think it's important to point out differences between, say, the Roman system of slavery and like the later chattel slavery of, you know, the Americas and the enslaved people of Africa. Because like that, I think that it's still important to make a distinction between like types, even though you're not necessarily wanting to make a distinction about like the horrors. Do you know what I mean?

• 10:44Speaker 03

  No, it is. And like what Roman slavery doesn't have, what ancient slavery in general doesn't have is a philosophy and a theology and a whole imaginary science to justify it, which is then continued on even after abolition into continuing to to be a structures of oppression that didn't exist in the ancient world in the same way at all. And the idea of like separating humans into races that

• 11:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  that is then kind of propped up with whole philosophies just does not exist. They just are like slavery exists and it can happen to anybody.

• 11:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Sucks.

• 11:23Liv Albert?

  There is something like slightly less, I mean, there is one slightly less horrifying about it though, you know, it's not like, it's not about making, and it's the same with the way we talk about it now, right? Where the West now is like, oh, but you know, it wasn't so bad, all of these things. And it's like, because we are the ones who came out on top. And so now trying to phrase it like, you know,

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's, but it's, it is like, oh, sorry, that my train of thought died off there, but it's just fascinating.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  It is fascinating. And it's kind of weird. It's hard to talk about because you don't want to be saying it's a lesser form of slavery.

• 11:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  But it is a different kind of evil. Like slavery in all of its forms is a human evil that we have done to one another. Because we have, it is, all of it is turning humans into commodities. What the European and American powers did with transatlantic slavery is then try to turn that into a science and then try to separate humans rather than, and turned it into a whole other kind of intellectualized evil that the Romans were kind of more honest about. They were just like, yeah, no, look, we enslave people and we do it because we wanna, rather than having to imagine and invent justifications for it. Like they felt no need to justify the fact that they

• 12:41Speaker 03

  enslaved people. They quite enjoyed it. And so it is, it's different shades of the same, the same evil of turning humans into non-humans that, and I think that the desire to

• 13:01Speaker 03

  Whitewash the Roman past um has led to people acting as though it wasn't an evil.

• 13:08Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Which is the thing that I would really like to kind of prove is untrue, that like that has that desire to be like, oh, yeah, no. It's it's like it's slavery, but not it's like slavery light. And you're like, well, if you've turned a human into property and you have turned them into something that is not a human being, who has no rights over their body, over their life, over their um, you know, their their safety, their where they live, how they live, what they can do, then you have you have committed an evil. I'm sorry, you've done a slavery um and whether like how you have defined it doesn't make it any less slavery.

• 13:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. I just want to say too, uh, on sort of its own little note, but like the Greeks had not as, it wasn't as like institutionalized as the Romans, um, but they very much had their own form of a similar form of of slavery. And I know that to this day, there are people who are taught at least that Greece didn't have slaves. And I think sometimes it's like, again, it's idea that because they didn't have the slavery system like the transatlantic slave trade, that they did not have slaves at all. And it's like, no, you had people who had no rights or freedoms that were sold by other people. It's just they weren't. Yeah, it didn't have those other elements to it. Yeah. But yeah, so just, I mean, we're not making this about Greece, but they were also terrible in that way.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  They were. Also, one of the funny things is that when when you're like reading about Manymission, a lot of the like writing about Manymission comes from writers in the Greek East, because they come from a tradition where giving citizenship to freed people, like people who have experienced slavery is disgusting to them. And the Romans like are quite liberal with citizenship um for a long time. Uh, and so if you are an enslaved person and the person who enslaves you is a Roman citizen and they free you, then you get Roman citizenship um and like people in in the Greek world.

• 15:09Liv Albert?

  Greece would find that, or certainly Athens would. Find that horrifying.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  They do. And obviously, because by the time we get to like the Roman period, everybody is writing through like an Athenian lens very much. Um. And so, um, they are, uh, kind of horrified by it. And they're just like, you get all of this writing, which is basically trying to explain the Latin west of the Mediterranean to the Greek east of the Mediterranean. Um, like people like Dionysus of Halkonassis, um, who are like, these guys are weird, like these, um, they just let slaves have citizenship, like they don't even make them pay like extra taxes as metics, like, um, they just let them be as though they're humans, you know? Um, like.

• 15:54Liv Albert?

  Fascinating to compare the different types, like the, I don't know what the right word is, it is, but like something in the vein of xenophobia, but like the different forms of ways that people just like hate other people or like, like.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Create hierarchies of personhood.

• 16:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And, and these ways that are so reminiscent of today, you know, you learn about them, you're like, oh, that's so far moved. And then you break it down. You're like, oh, it's exactly the same. And it's just, yeah, it's fascinating. And it's again, horror.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  It is. Um, but I think, um, the, the horror is kind of why I like looking at it. Like, a lot of people want to shy away from how horrific it is. And I find the kind of depths of the nastiness and the depths of the like suffering that free people liked to inflict upon enslaved people.

• 16:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  To be, and how, cause the thing that I, the thing that I like about the Romans is how generally very pleased with themselves. They are when they have inflicted suffering. Um, like they.

• 16:57Liv Albert?

  The Romans were so fucked up.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  They're so fucked up. Um, and they like really love, um, like depicting in their artwork, in their public artwork and in their private artwork, like people who have been enslaved or been captured um, or been defeated in some way, like crying. Um, like they really want them to be. And they'll put so much money into creating lavish displays of people being very upset that they're being enslaved by the Romans or that they have been enslaved by the Romans. Or like, um, like I found a vase in the British Museum. It's not on display sadly. I think they should let me have it.

• 17:40Liv Albert?

  They should not allow anything to not be on display. They should, they should.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  I think if they're not gonna put it on display, they should let me have it in my house and I'll let people come and see it. But it's a, um, vase of a, a young boy. Uh, he's an African boy and he is like crouched. Um, and is for sale because he's got a little tag around his neck.

• 18:04Liv Albert?

  Oh, my god.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  That he's for sale. Um, and he's crying. Um.

• 18:09Liv Albert?

  And it's just on a vase.

• 18:11Speaker 03

  And it's just, and it is, that it's like a vase and this is, it's the shape of the boy. Um, and you're like, why would you make that?

• 18:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah, why do you want that in your house?

• 18:22Speaker 03

  It's, this is a really expensive, like, you know, vessel that you've made. It's incredibly detailed, like the artist who made it has done lovely work.

• 18:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Um, and also having this in your house, I think, might be psychologically damaging. Um, to everybody who has to see it and or like just even owning this might.

• 18:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Kind of be hurting your soul somehow. Um, and the Romans just do this constantly, like they love to have suffering. As part of their aesthetic, like the other, the suffering of other people.

• 18:56Liv Albert?

  This is just what I always do. So apologies in advance, but it's happening. But like, I absolutely have to point out the parallels to the American empire and like. I mean, the, the slavery element, I'm, I am certain that anyone with a lick more knowledge of like antebellum South history than I have.

• 19:17Liv Albert?

  Would be able to like the pre the slavery and the plantation owners and stuff like I am sure that they did the equivalent horrible stuff because I'm like I know there are stories and I can't think of anything odd but like yeah it's just it's fascinating to see those comparisons because I know certainly so many of those plantation owners were just happily inflicting harm and pain and like it's wild and then just to also now I mean the American just turned it into their prison system like that is they make them fight the forest fires now and for like six cents a day or whatever and you're like okay cool so you just you literally just changed the way that you have

• 20:00Speaker 03

  You just switched it.

• 20:01Liv Albert?

  Slavery yeah but like

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Is it the 13th amendment like you cannot be enslaved unless you commit a crime?

• 20:08Liv Albert?

  Yeah like truly yeah

• 20:10Speaker 03

  It's not really abolishment but okay.

• 20:12Liv Albert?

  Like I this was going around I don't know when it came out but it was I saw someone posted it recently there's like a line in Hillary Clinton's memoir where she talks just very openly about the fact that when Bill Clinton was the governor of I think Arkansas he they the the Arkansas governor's mansion just used it prison slaver slave slaves prison slaves they use enslaved people from the prison to run the house openly in the 90s and she is talking about in this book and she literally says like they were all of these nice African American men who had served 20 to 30 years and I trusted or like certain things you're like are you fucking crazy like

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Can you hear yourself?

• 20:58Liv Albert?

  Truly you are talking about slaves and you are also openly acknowledging that they're usually black because the majority of like people in American prison systems are like oh my god it's just wild anyway I have to think everything political especially right now.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  The fascinating thing about the language of that, they're like, oh, they were so nice. I'm sure they were so happy to be there is like the exact language because I read loads of, because I do use comparative material from the antebellum South.

• 21:27Liv Albert?

  Oh, good.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  And like,

• 21:31Liv Albert?

  Is that a word is like, okay to use in terms of when you're referring to that period, right? I used it and then I was like, I know that it's bad when you're like romanticizing it, but I think it's just anyway.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  I caught, yeah, pre abolishment. Yeah, basically, I use comparative slavery from the Americas, from, from the southern states, from the slave owning states of the USA and also from the Caribbean and Brazil. And, and the, there's a lot of like writing from English people traveling through America and traveling through the Caribbean. And, and a lot of them will appear, having been, because they don't have a, a direct experience of slavery in England. And they arrive with a kind of like, ooh, I don't know how I'm going to feel about this. And very quickly, they're like, oh no, they love it.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  And they're all very happy. And, and actually, I think it might be fine. And the way that they, they have no ability to see that what they might be seeing is the performance of slavery and the performance of good slavery in order to not be punished or to potentially be rewarded. And that they just take it completely at face value. I was like, this is just like, because I read all like so much Roman sources from enslavers where they're like, and obviously, Tyro's so happy to be listening to all of my speeches. Like, he loves standing next to me all day and listening to me recite my speeches.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  And Pliny's like, writes about one of his secretaries who gets sick as well and plenty younger and who's like, I don't know how I can cope without him and he must be devastated that he's missing out on all of this work that I'm doing. I'm like, I feel fairly confident that he's probably not.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Like they just cannot, they're so blinded by like the, the system of it that they cannot see the people they enslaved as full human beings who might be lying to them. About whether they're happy to be in this position. And it's amazing how you see that across the centuries of like, they so badly want to be morally correct and to forgive themselves for what they're doing. That um, they're like, oh no, they love it.

• 23:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  They're fine with it.

• 23:55Liv Albert?

  I, I mean, and I would be, I would be very remiss not to point out that this is also what happened in Canada in the residential schools.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:02Liv Albert?

  Because like, it's just like, okay, no, we've all, all the colonizing countries have done it for sure. It's, it's so like, it's wild. So is there, and I'm imagining, I know the answer to this, but do we not have any record at all of anybody seeming to question the morality? Like a Rome at least, I know we have so much more written record of everything.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  The only reference that I could find to even the possibility of it being talked about is in Seneca's letter forty seven, where he is writing, it's kind of the famous letter where he's writing about moderation basically towards enslaved people. And he writes and says that he sees these kind of terrible abuses, particularly like dinner parties and at public events where he sees people being beaten and being tortured for sneezing, for coughing, for breathing too loudly. And he thinks that the way that his peers treat the people that they enslave is kind of unconscionable.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  And he's basically like, oh, I'm not saying that we should, you know, be treating them like kings. I'm just saying we should remember that they're humans. But, and then at the end, he says, obviously the people are going to come back at me and say, oh, Seneca's trying to abolish slavery.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  And I'm not trying to abolish slavery. I would never try to abolish slavery. I'm just saying we should maybe remember that they have souls. And

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Obviously expects, like he's doing that kind of like defensive writing where he's kind of like planning.

• 25:41Liv Albert?

  Sounds like a tweet.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Like, and you get that a lot in Roman writing. I feel like the forum might have been fairly combative. Uh, but he, he obviously feels like he knows what the like extreme reading. But he's literally not talking about anything more than not doing the most extreme violence to people.

• 26:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  For the most stupid reasons. Yeah.

• 26:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Uh, and, and perhaps remembering that, um, you know, it's a, it's a stoic. Philosophical treatise, basically of like, this could happen to any of us, like technically, any of us could end up as slaves. Um, but he is, and so he, he says, like, I'm not saying we, we're going to abolish slavery. But that's like the only reference to the idea that that might even be a topic of conversation.

• 26:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah, cause that's kind of what I'm at least at the very, the base level, what I'm taking from that is that if he is worried that people will accuse him. Of promoting abolishing slavery, then maybe someone at some point had suggested it.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. The kind of by the time that I had finished, I came to the conclusion that slavery in the Roman. World basically fills the position that like globalized capitalism does in our world. Which is that there are, there are people who are uncomfortable with it. Um, but it is so embedded in every part of their life. And it is so huge as a system and it is so propping up everything. And it does make Roman lives nicer than non-Roman lives. Um, that.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  They cannot.

• 27:28Liv Albert?

  It sounds exactly like Western, like late Western capitalism.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Exactly. And to say that, that to say, oh, I think that we should abolish globalized capitalism, where we've outsourced all of our production to like sweatshops. And like, we know that horrific things are happening in these factories where all of the nice things that we have are produced. And we know that.

• 27:52Liv Albert?

  At the cost of the global South.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. And we know that the nice lives that we inhabit in our nice houses have been built on land that was like stolen and built on brutalization. But at the same time, the idea of saying, what if we stopped doing it? It's so radical that it is only the very fringiest people. And it is only because we have a, like a massive information system that no previous culture could ever have like imagined that we, that, that we hear those voices. Like otherwise, you know, I live a nice kind of middle class life in a nice middle class city in Ireland.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  And I would not hear those voices if I didn't have like the internet, basically. And, and so the, there probably were those people, but they were to the Romans as like hardcore anarchists and people who blow up oil pipelines are to my life, basically. Which is very on the fringe of the experience of everyone's life. And for most people, slavery was just something that was sometimes a bit unpleasant if you thought about it too hard, but largely just how it is and what you can do about it.

• 29:20Liv Albert?

  Well, and we have to remember too that like you're looking at the breadth of Roman history, whereas we are existing right now at the very tail end, I would say of like this current form of Western capitalist empire.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:34Liv Albert?

  You know, and so we are at that where we have reached that peak of understanding. And then everything you said too about the internet and God, but like we have also, we are also at that like zenith point, I think in our version of it, whereas yeah, we are looking back on the history of all of it. And I mean, up until 10 years ago, people didn't feel this way about capitalism. So it's like, if you're looking at the last 400 years, it's going to look very similar to Roman history.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you're looking at Seneca, who is like before the peak of empire, like if you consider the peak of the Roman empire to be Trajan, then Seneca's writing like nearly 100 years before that. So he's like in the come up. He's like the Victorians of the...

• 30:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  So he's writing from a position, and most of the writing that we have, it's not until you get to, like the Christian sources are actually incredibly useful for rewriting about slavery. And there are Christian sources from, you know, the second century onwards. And the way that they write about the world is so different from the way that like polytheistics, more traditional Roman sources write, that you can get so much about slavery out of

• 30:47Liv Albert?

  Is there a moral aspect in those writings more, do you find?

• 30:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 30:51Liv Albert?

  Really?

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Um.

• 30:53Liv Albert?

  For all we hear about Jesus.

• 31:07Liv Albert?

  This episode is brought to you by Quince. You know the drill. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. I have been speaking into a microphone about Quince for a while now, and I have no complaints. I have a bunch of their stuff. I've got a couple cute sweaters that, I mean, it's nearing sweater season, so those will be back in the rotation anytime now. And I have this leather bag that I absolutely love. It's like this braided leather, and I use it like basically every day. Because

• 31:48Liv Albert?

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• 32:29Liv Albert?

  it just getting rid of the middlemen, you know? Making things more affordable. So find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was me. Let's talk about myths, baby. It's the best way to support the show.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Yes, and even Jesus is not, does not really have that much interest in slavery. And one of the fascinating things actually is how invested in maintaining slavery. A lot of the Christian sources are like.

• 33:28Liv Albert?

  Okay, so they were always like this.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, even they gradually mitigate it in that, in the laws. So the Christian emperors are a bit like, probably stopped beating them to death and stop. But what they're interested in is from a theological perspective, the bodily integrity of enslaved people. Because if they're Christian enslaved people, they need to protect their bodies for bodily resurrection.

• 33:54Liv Albert?

  What is bodily resurrection? I don't have any religion in my.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  So particularly in the early church, but still is like part of Catholic doctrine as well is that

• 34:07Speaker 03

  the body will one day when like the, when Jesus returns, when Christ returns, the body will be resurrected.

• 34:15Liv Albert?

  I didn't know we all got that.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  Only Christians.

• 34:18Liv Albert?

  Well, I'm technically Catholic, I'm just clearly not a very good one, but I got the baptism.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  But the, basically, particularly for the first like few centuries, the Roman church was very, very invested in protecting the physical body, because when Jesus comes back like any minute now, you need your body to be, and then they got really into being buried in the right place and facing in the right direction. So they stopped doing cremation anywhere, and you start getting physical burials. And then you get people like reintering people so they can be closer to Rome. So that when they come back, because obviously Jesus is going to come back to Rome.

• 35:00Liv Albert?

  Well, yeah, and again, there's signs all over, I live near Chinatown in Toronto, and I'm not trying to make that connection, but it just happens to be in Chinatown, but they. Those, the blocks are covered, covered in various different types of propaganda about Jesus coming back. Like, it's gotta be any day now.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  Any day now. Um, yeah. And for, you know, a long time, they really thought that that was gonna be the case. Um, and so they really, so you get things like, um, Constantine talking about, like, please stop killing them. Um, like murder is also bad for your soul. Um, and like banning tattooing, like punishment tattooing. Um, and branding. So that, it was very common, um, to, if people, like, tried to free themselves, like self emancipated and ran away. Um, if they were recaptured, like massively disfiguring facial tattooing was very common. Um, and, um, Christians stopped doing that, but what they do instead,

• 36:01Speaker 03

  um, is something that's much more visible in the archaeological record, which is they use collars. Um, so they will weld iron collars onto the person.

• 36:12Liv Albert?

  Oh, God.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  And then put a tag on it, like a big tag, that would says something like, if I am found, return me to X for a reward. Um, and we know they're Christian because almost all of them that we have found, and that forty or fifty have, they'll either have a Cairo or the palm leaf, um, to show that it's a Christian owner. Um, and so they're still incredibly invested in slavery.

• 36:39Liv Albert?

  Yeah, they're just mixing it up.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  They're just, um, like, they're just really, like, we're, obviously, we're going to enslave you. Obviously, we're going to still punish you for this. Obviously, this punishment is still gonna be horrific and potentially, uh, worse, because it's gonna be iron and tight and welded on and on you. And we find them.

• 36:58Liv Albert?

  I was gonna ask, how does it show up in the archaeological record, then?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  We, because we find skeletons with them still around the neck.

• 37:05Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 37:06Speaker 03

  And, um, and they're like incredibly well preserved because they're iron. Um, and so they, you know, it very much continues as, as a practice and, um, just with slight shifts in how they, um, how they enact, like, the, the horrors of, of enslavement and have continued. Because enslavement is a process, when you are an enslaver, you have to be constantly, um...

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Forcing a person to choose over and over again not to just fucking leave or kill you.

• 37:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  Or kill you, yeah.

• 37:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Um, it has to always be, and it is a constant process of grinding a person out of being a person. Um, and so the choices that they make are slightly different. Um, and you do get like, um, the, the idea that the mortal life is temporary and that the afterlife will be eternal. And if you behave in the mortal life, then you will have rewards in the afterlife. Mean, is like incredibly useful for the, um.

• 38:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  And process of enslavement, yeah, and the enforcement of enslavement, like, because you can, you don't even have to give them something in, you don't even have to free them on their deathbeds or anything, like they'll be free in heaven, so. Um, and, and that, that does continue very much. And you see like really horrific things in Christian sources that you wouldn't otherwise really see in non-Christian sources. So lots of, um, early Christian, um, like hagiographies and, and conversion texts about women, um, will focus on elite women, um, because they're kind of very prized as a, um,

• 38:55Speaker 03

  and also from a novelistic perspective, they're kind of the sexiest kind of protagonist, basically. Um, so there'll always be a, um, an elite woman who hears usually Saint Paul or one of the apostles and she'll overhear them preaching from her window and she will be converted. And then she'll realise that what Saint Paul is preaching is chastity. Um, and thus she never wants to have sex ever again. She's going to become, uh, um, like she's going to stop having sex with her husband, but her husband still wants his marital rights. So she will trick him by, um, disguising one of her, uh, maids, her enslaved

• 39:35Speaker 03

  girls, um, as her, um, and, um, having him come into a darkened room and have sex with her instead. And that is presented as ideal behaviour. Um, like.

• 39:47Liv Albert?

  It's giving Handmaid's Tale.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  It's so Handmaid's Tale and it's like she has protected herself, um, and he's got what he wants. And don't see that we really need to worry about the, the young girl who's not Christian, so it doesn't matter. Um, and you're like, oh, okay, wow, I didn't, uh. That's like a whole insight into the domestic responsibilities, apparently, of and how much control you can have over a girl or woman who is enslaved in the household. And then what I tried to do with the book, I guess, is shift the perspective because that everything in the Roman world is written from the perspective of the elite woman or the elite man.

• 40:25Liv Albert?

  That was my question too, is like, do we have any writing by, I mean, we have writing by freed people, but not.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we don't even have that much writing by freed people, except epigraphy. But you can imagine and to try to shift the perspective and imagine what it's like to be that girl. Like, can she say, obviously she can't say no, what's going to happen to her if she doesn't say yes? Like, how does it feel to, how Handmaid's Tale does it feel like to? And you get a lot of writing in Roman era novels, which were all kind of Greek language, but from the empire, about like a kind of sexy trope in these novels is that

• 41:11Speaker 03

  a young woman or a young man who is noble and beautiful, and you know that they're noble because they're beautiful.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  And they're so noble that their beauty is such that they're sometimes mistaken for a god.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  And they will be kidnapped by a pirate or a bandit and they will be enslaved. And then they'll be bought by somebody who falls in love with them.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  And that person will want to have sex with them. And they will say no because they're noble and chaste and they only have sex within legitimate marriage.

• 41:49Liv Albert?

  So I was explaining what I was, I keep like, looking like I'm distracted. It's because this keeps wanting to come in and out of the room.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  I mean, they are more than welcome to come and say hello.

• 42:02Liv Albert?

  You want to be, thank you.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Oh, a cutie.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Hello, Anchovy, an adorable baby. I just wanted to come and hear about Roman novels because they are great.

• 42:13Liv Albert?

  He's Greek, so I think he was feeling a little bit of competition. Yeah, yeah. From a Greek island.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. So he just wanted to come and make sure that the Greeks were still represented.

• 42:25Liv Albert?

  Represented, exactly, yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  But, uh, yeah, so basically the, somebody will then fall in love with them, um, will want to have sex with them and will say, I am your master or I am your mistress. I will want to have sex with you. And they say, no, no, no. Um, and then they will be tortured until they say yes, uh, basically. And the, like, the sexiness is that they, uh, are constantly tortured and they constantly say no. And you, they're so noble that you cannot torture them into giving up their chastity.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  And which is kind of fascinatingly, uh, hideous. But is like such a freakishly insight into like how the Romans imagined their slaves. That the fact that their slaves and the enslaved people give up their chastity or will give in, uh, if they are tortured. Or even if they're threatened with torture, they'll be like, okay, well, it feels like maybe this is worse than that. Or that is worse than this. Like they make a decision to protect their body from one form of violence by submitting to another form of violence. Then then they hate them for it. Uh, and then like, oh, well, if you were noble, if you were good, if you were a true.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Noble elite, like person who didn't deserve to be enslaved, then you would have, you wouldn't submit. Just this enslavement. Um, I can't remember what the original point that I was making was because I've been distracted by talking.

• 43:55Liv Albert?

  Derailed.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  Also, I just really like talking about the novels, but.

• 43:59Liv Albert?

  No, I will, I'm fascinated by that because like, I, I mean, I keep, I'm seeing the parallels in Greek myth. Because I, I mean, that's at this point, like the entirety of my obsession is just like seeing how Greek myth like laid the groundwork. For like the patriarchy more broadly, because to me, so many stories from Greek mythos. Are just essentially like. They're suggesting that that is the ideal reaction, I think, you know, like, you know, half the women are just assaulted by gods at any random time. And most of the time, they don't put up a fight. And we're meant to kind of take away that like, that's what

• 44:40Liv Albert?

  you, that's sort of the right thing to do. But in this way where, I mean, it's so much more nefarious than that, obviously, and they're rewritten in these ways where it's like seduced or like, I mean, I have a new obsession with the fact that all of the mythical characters that we call nymphs, we only really call that because they were like fuckable to the gods, because the word nymph just means like, basically, young, marriageable woman. You're like, oh, cool. That's why we call them that. Not because that was like a cool like modifier. Like, no, no, they actually have their own types. If you want to go with like that, you know, they're Iliad or an area, whatever. Anyway, I'm obsessed. But it just like, that's what it sounds like to me, right? This like, this, it's just

• 45:24Liv Albert?

  sort of the groundwork for all of it. Just this, this hierarchy of humanity and one person controlling another. And yeah, the novels clearly are just like mirroring all of that, too.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  They are. And they're part of this, like, the thing that I am always really interested in is how cultural products like create and then reinforce cultural norms. Like, what is supposed to be a normal reaction? What is supposed to be what in this scene that has been written is supposed to be either funny, because it's unusual, or, or shocking, or what is, you know, what is being reinforced? Like, the idea that nobility is an ability is both beauty, and an ability to resist all kinds of violence in, in order to maintain

• 46:17Speaker 03

  one's honor, is something that like, just appears over and over and over again. And that's something. And then, from my perspective in the book, the thing that really staggered me is how common the Use of casual violence against enslaved people for any given reason appears as not just like, not something that's shocking, not something that is supposed to be even a plot point particularly, but just as a a generalized, expected, common reaction to the mildest of inconveniences. Like, there'll be, there's like, um, one novel where a character

• 46:58Speaker 03

  is having a big sulk, uh, cause he thinks that, um, his, uh, he's like the, he's the elite boy, um, and he thinks that the elite girl is dead, um, which happens probably three, four times every novel, but, um, he's so, he's having a massive sulk about it. Um, and it's like, uh, Satenalia, so he says that his, um, enslaved household, he's on a boat, he says they can have a party as long as they don't just bother him. Um, and then, uh, another character comes in the middle of the party to tell him that his wife is alive and, um, the slave goes to knock on the door and be like, oh, we, we have some news for you. He was like, I told you not to bother me. And he breaks his leg.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Uh, and you're like, well, that just escalated so far out of what has like, it, the in proportion of what has occurred in this book. Um, and that's just like, and then they just move on from there. And you're like, oh, wow. Okay. That character just had their leg broken. Um, and for nothing, basically for, he was, uh, stuck between this position, like from the perspective of the enslaved character, who I don't think has a name. It's just like,

• 48:08Liv Albert?

  sure.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. What? They never do.

• 48:11Liv Albert?

  No, it's like, I mean, so many like wives are so similar and I don't want to try to equate that. But like, I often think that the way women are treated laid the groundwork for a lot of like.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. It just is like a total, the like erasing of their impersonity.

• 48:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Why give them a name?

• 48:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  They are, they are a tool in this. They were not a person. But basically this character is like, one free person with the power to kill him has told him, do not disturb me. And another free person with the power to hurt him has said, go and tell. Him and he kind of has to choose which one is going to break his leg. Because one of them is going to hurt him. And he just has to make the decision about which one is going to be. And and that I feel is so much a part of what enslaved life was. Is having to choose what what horror was going to happen and which one you were.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  One of them was like they were all kind of inevitable at some point, but are you gonna?

• 49:17Speaker 03

  Like somehow hold in this sneeze and cause yourself pain? Or and like, or are you gonna sneeze and get beaten for it? Like either of those is going to hurt a lot and you're going to have to choose which one you're able to do. And that is so much of how the Romans just act as a normal level of of interaction with enslaved people. And that is just the from the enslaved perspective, the normal level of interaction with free people is violence. Is random, sudden, unstoppable violence against their person.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  And it just comes up over and over and over and over again as a like cultural artifact. That then tells all of the people who read or hear this that that's it's fine, it's normal. That's what it is. That's. You can't complain about it because that's what. This happened to everybody. It's expected. That's what slavery is. Like, grow up.

• 50:18Liv Albert?

  I mean, I, yeah, you could see it all happening today, right? It's just there's so many things we're told not to worry about because that, I mean, it upholds various. I it's, yeah, wow, okay, this is something I I feel like this leads well into it and it's something I've generally been interested in. But it comes from, I imagine, I imagine you're familiar with Elodie Harper's Wolf Den trilogy. So one thing that I think she like wrote about really well, but I would love to hear the more historical side. Is this idea of when someone is freed and then goes on to like own their own slaves? And I know that that was something was happened in Roman. It's something I'd never really thought of until I was reading those books. And I was like, God, this is just so like uniquely disturbing.

• 51:04Liv Albert?

  And yeah, I imagine you wrote about it.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  I did. In fact, one of the weirdly uniquely disturbing things about the Roman system is you don't even need to be freed to own your own slaves.

• 51:13Liv Albert?

  Oh lovely, wow.

• 51:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, there are, there can be like nests and nests. So the Romans have this very complicated legal system that allows enslaved people a thing called the peculium, which is a like legal instrument that allows people with no personhood to control property without owning it. It's like legally owned by the kind of the the overall enslaver. But they can, they can sort of have property in a separate account that is that they control. It can be taken away at any point, but it can, it can be quite vast. So you see people who have like,

• 52:02Speaker 03

  like imperial, people in the imperial household or people in the like really big aristocratic households, there will be like a guy who is the head steward of the house and he owns like his own apartments. And they're, they're filled with, and he has like nineteen of his own sub-slaves. And then some of those will then own other people. They don't really own them, they can just control them legally. But in practice, they like have, you know, ninety nine percent control over them. And it then kind of nests all the way down into

• 52:42Speaker 03

  people owning people owning people because a person is a commodity. And if they can own a table, then, and they can own a vase, then they can own a person. And you get what are really complex hierarchies of like free person then.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  Then having like a high status, always male enslaved person, followed by slightly lower status people who then have assistants of their own and they all kind of can own and control one another. And it's a very clever way of allowing an enslaved person to have a certain amount of autonomy and to be able to enact autonomy within guidelines and feel like they are advancing and feel like they are and have something to lose and that they have some kind of status because they have people who are below them.

• 53:44Liv Albert?

  The millionaires in the capitalist system, I would say, the high ranking millionaire.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  This is like very much like existing within the highest of the highest levels, but it is definitely.

• 53:56Liv Albert?

  You're not the 1%, but you're like, you're being used by them.

• 54:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you're like the 1% like personal assistant.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  And yes, they can throw their phone at your head, but you can then throw your phone at the head of somebody else who is your assistant. And then they have an assistant.

• 54:13Liv Albert?

  And that's how it gets upheld. Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 54:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  And you can keep throwing the, your phone at somebody's head all the way down. And so they do have this instrument whereby people can own people and where people can have dual identities as a, as a, as a subordinate, as a, as property to one person. My cat's just gone to say hello.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  She is gonna look at me and scream.

• 54:44Speaker 03

  And then, but they can also be master to somebody else. So they can,

• 54:51Speaker 03

  they can have these dual identities in themselves that from minute to minute can shift to being the recipient of oppression to oppressing someone else. And I think it is a sign of how incredibly.

• 55:06Liv Albert?

  She has so much to say.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  How incredibly embedded and sophisticated the Roman system is that people, the most that enslaved people could wish for was to own other people and to potentially be freed to own other people. And we see no evidence in the sources that survive that this caused conflict within them. Or that anybody, I mean, if anybody ever was like, well, I'm not going to do this to another person, then kind of by definition, they wouldn't like, unless they left a manifesto inscribed on stone.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  Then we wouldn't have it. And we don't have anything that suggests that

• 55:55Speaker 03

  on a broad scale, there was that much conflict within people in the idea of both being and a slave and an enslaver at the same time. Which is, and I do think that Elodie writes about this really well. Because from a modern perspective, it feels like the things are incompatible.

• 56:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  But there, and I think that it is a sign of of how impossible to escape the system felt. That even if you didn't like it particularly, you would still participate in it. To the level that you would continue to own, buy and sell people.

• 56:38Speaker 03

  I do think that, um, shush, come back, come back.

• 56:44Speaker 03

  She's coming up, she's got an hour until she gets fed, so she's.

• 56:46Liv Albert?

  Oh, of course.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  But, um, so, uh, Oliwada Equiano, who is, uh, he was a Nigerian man who wrote an autobiography. He was kidnapped from Nigeria and then trafficked through the British Empire and ended up in slavery in the Caribbean to mostly English men working in the buying and selling of commodities around the Caribbean and to the southern states, which included people.

• 57:21Speaker 03

  And he eventually managed to buy his own freedom, which was.

• 57:28Speaker 03

  It was very awful.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  He eventually managed to buy his own freedom, which he writes about with like very passionately up to how difficult that was. But then he, basically, the guy who enslaved him, this guy called Robert King, guilted him into staying in his service. And he became a slave trader. So he, as a free man, a free black man in Caribbean, became a slave trader. And wrote about his, not his ambivalence about it, although he doesn't like it, but just how he, as a freed person, tries to mitigate the abuses that are committed against

• 58:16Speaker 03

  the people who are still enslaved. So he writes about being on a ship that is sinking in a,

• 58:25Speaker 03

  it's sinking in a storm and one of the white people on board says to lock the,

• 58:32Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 58:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. Basically says to lock the enslaved people who are on the ship in there because if they'll get more insurance money if they go down. And so,

• 58:44Liv Albert?

  Capitalism.

• 58:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he refuses. He's like, absolutely fucking not. I am gonna save as many of these lives as I possibly can, and he does. And then he becomes an overseer on a plantation, basically an intermediary between the plantation owner and the field workers, the field slaves, and does his best and talks constantly about how he tries to mitigate the violence and mitigate the horror and to feed them and to make it so that their experience is, as, you know, to just ameliorate how horrific it can be. And after he leaves, somebody writes to him and says, like, the guy who took off after

• 59:27Speaker 03

  you just is not, is a white guy and is undoing everything that you did, basically. And he feels terrible about it. And so I suspect that that is probably what was experienced. So people were, Like Equiano writes that he, when he gets to England, he tries to, he becomes an abolitionist and he starts writing about it once he's out of the system. Um, but when he is still stuck in the Americas and when he is still trying to um raise the money and raise the, like basically it's a force of will to tell these people that he's not going to work for them anymore.

• 1:00:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  Because they're really exert as much as they can to keep him there. Um, to be able to, before he can get out of it, when he is a participant in the slave system, as a person who has experienced slavery, he tries to, to do his best for the people he is enslaving. Um, and I think that that's probably what you saw as a freed person. Um, is that some of them were going to try to make it a less horrific experience, having known what it's like on the other side. Although it is a trope, I will say, of Latin literature that freed people were worse masters.

• 1:00:38Liv Albert?

  Of course it would be.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Because, one, because they're not as rational, like they've had their rationality, much like women.

• 1:00:45Liv Albert?

  Right, you still, yeah, you've still got to make them lesser humans, yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  Um, and so in the exact same way that the Romans write about women always being cruel because they don't have rationality, um, and that's why you can't let women like lead things.

• 1:00:59Liv Albert?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  They will.

• 1:01:02Liv Albert?

  It's going so well being led by the men as we can all see, like these two thousand years later, going great.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  So unemotional, so unemotional.

• 1:01:09Liv Albert?

  Oh yeah, no, they're not emotional at all.

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  As long as you don't categorize anger as an emotion, then it's fine.

• 1:01:13Liv Albert?

  True, no, well, anger's not an emotion, no, it's manly, that's rational emotion.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, yeah, so they, the trope is that freed people, um, and the children of freed people will always be crueler because they lack the rationality to not be. But I think in reality, um, you probably saw people like Equiano who felt trapped in a system that was necessary to perpetuate. Um, and if you wanted to get ahead in the Roman world, like you couldn't not have enslaved people. Um, that it, um, but they, I would hope were people who did their best to make it at least a better place to be enslaved in their company than anybody else's.

• 1:01:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah.

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• 1:03:00Liv Albert?

  Oh, it's just so, I mean, it's so wild and just... I mean, I should have expected how many parallels I would see to today, but I still, you know, I'm still surprised, still able to be surprised. And this is something like, not to make it about my Odyssey, but it was something I did have to think about a little bit when writing for kids, because something I felt really, you know, was important was to not, to not make the enslaved characters seem like they were not enslaved. I didn't want them to be just old servants. I didn't want that. But at the same time, from a narrative perspective, they are the tropes of good slave, bad slave

• 1:03:43Liv Albert?

  in like, very overt and somewhat disturbing ways.

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  There's no subtlety to them, as it's true.

• 1:03:50Liv Albert?

  Not at all. And so I don't want to pretend like I did it, you know, particularly well, because overall what I was doing was writing the Odyssey. But what we do, we are able to do when talking about some of those characters is, at the very least, make this acknowledgement that... Enslaved people were real and, you know, it was a real practice. And even though these characters seem like they love their families, a real slave's life was horrific and often violent and didn't have, you know, so we didn't, we were able to at least make that point in like a little box off to the side. But it was something where I was like, you know, I'm, it's sort of, it's a difficult line to walk because you don't want to erase it entirely.

• 1:04:34Liv Albert?

  I'm not going to make it seem like these people aren't enslaved. But at the same time, like there's, there is an element where I can see that being an easier answer when you're dealing with characters who are so in love with the families that own them. And so, yeah, it's such an odd kind of line to walk. And, and also I will proudly say too, one thing I did not exclude was the killing of the slave women at the end. And that is, yeah, very specifically in there too. So we still, and we get that, another clear indication off, like we have these little info boxes. And, and one of them on, on that page as well said, you know, points out the discrepancies of like, these slave women were forced to serve the suitors, but are still explicitly, you know, killed for it.

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  Somehow they're the only ones punished with that.

• 1:05:20Liv Albert?

  Exactly. And, and, and given the, the worst of the punishments that they could imagine and all of this. So, you know, those are things where at the very least I was able to acknowledge those in that, in a way where, from a lot of what I've seen, it tends to be that people just kind of try to make the Odyssey into purely an adventure story for children.

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that, that is part of the, you know, even retellings of, of ancient world stories for adults will very often kind of scrub out the, the slavery and they'll use the word servant, which is a very different thing. And they will have very kind of broad strokes ideas of, of what slavery looked like. The thing for me is that I find that 99.9999% of fiction about the ancient world, like particularly the Roman world, like will reduce the amount of enslaved characters that there are. And like,

• 1:06:19Speaker 03

  Um, and be like, oh, so Cicero has one slave and you're like.

• 1:06:24Liv Albert?

  Hmm. Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 03

  One hundred.

• 1:06:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  In this house, um, like significantly more than that, no? Um, and, uh, and I do think that, and so much of, of the way that we picture the ancient world comes through the kind of depictions of it that we see in fiction and, um, and to re- remove the slavery from it and to kind of, or to shave the hard edges off of what slavery is. Um, I think does a disservice to our understanding of the ancient world as historians, like it, um,

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  skews what the ancient world is so much, like.

• 1:07:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Speaker 03

  Um, and I think that,

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  you know, if you were to go back and be like to either a Greek or a Roman, like elite man at any point or any person, like a nice middle class merchant and be like, oh, you know, we took the slavery out because that seemed a bit gross. They'd be like, how dare you? We like this.

• 1:07:25Speaker 03

  I put loads of effort into having loads of slaves. Um, and the enslaved people, if you went back and when, oh, we took the slavery out, uh, because it made us feel uncomfortable would be like, well, that was, my life was quite important to me, actually. Um, and if arguably a third of people in the Roman Empire are enslaved at any given point, then erasing one third of lives from that empire is doing a disservice to one, like all of those people who are suddenly not Roman, suddenly not worthy of historical inquiry, suddenly just not important to our vision. And I think that they would, you know, if somebody came back and was like, oh, we decided that your

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  entire, you know, class of people was not really important to our vision of the world. I would be quite unhappy about that. I'd be like, well, I would like to be included in your vision of what the Roman world looks like. Um, so which is, you know, my best effort.

• 1:08:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah, well, it sounds like you've done a good job. And just in the way of like, this approach is so good, right? Of just this, this interest in the lived experiences of those people and, and in like, I think it's really important and interesting to look at these kinds of contradictions. This, the way that they saw it and the way that they actually. Understood every, I mean, both the free people and, you know, the enslaved on.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Liv Albert?

  It's, it's so interesting. And also like, I mean, obviously it's important from a historical perspective to obvi- I will talk about this all the time. I think that's happened so often when it comes to the history of like women in the ancient world, particularly in Greece, because we have less sources and things. We get this like, it's, it's such a similar idea where it's just sort of excluded. I mean, I picked up, I was, went to the reference library the other day and picked out a bunch of books and you know, the number of them that I'm flipping through where it's like, the, the title is something like archaic Greek history, you know, something very, very broad. And then the very last chip, chapter is just women.

• 1:09:28Liv Albert?

  And you're like, okay, so what you mean by that is this entire broad history that you have presented as archaic Greek history, 99% of it is just about men, but you're going to call it history, right? And it's like, yeah, I mean, it's, I don't want to make this, obviously, like enslavement is a whole other level from patriarchal oppression, but it is just, they are like cut from the same original cloth, right? Just this idea that one group of people is worth more.

• 1:09:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Liv Albert?

  Is more human.

• 1:09:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:58Liv Albert?

  That they are, they are history, you know, and like from, you know, obviously I come at everything from a more mythological perspective. And right now, everything I do is based around the Odyssey, but like, it just reminds me wanting to tell these things in this kind of more, I mean, it's progressive, yes, but also just, I think truthful and like open way.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Liv Albert?

  I think is so important. Like, I really wanted to do it with the Odyssey because everything I was picking up in doing the research, you know, did a lot of, the main thing they would do to try to make it, you know, readable for kids is to completely cut out the like story within a story narrative and make it like a chronological.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:38Liv Albert?

  Story of what happens. And to me, that is like a fundamental change. Like that is not the Odyssey. And, you know, obviously that's like a very specific, very low stakes example, but it's still an example of like, I think for so long, we've been. Fed this diet of like very specifically crafted interpretations of the ancient world. And they have been crafted with lots of things in mind, like both intentional and not and like nefarious and not. But like slavery, like there's so many things that, you know, when it comes to our understanding of the ancient world, we are presented with this specific version that is meant to make our,

• 1:11:19Liv Albert?

  quote unquote, civilization of the West, the colonial powers of the West, look like the good guys in every possible way. And to me, like representations of the Odyssey also contribute to that, Christopher Nolan. You know, like, and, and it's really important that we have these things that are pushing back. And so this is so silly to be like, the Odyssey versus, actual human enslavement in history. But I think it's just a broader idea.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  Like expansion of our understanding of the ancient world.

• 1:11:48Liv Albert?

  Exactly. And with this-

• 1:11:49Speaker 03

  You need both of them because people who like the Odyssey and are like mythologists aren't going to go and pick up my, like,

• 1:11:56Liv Albert?

  I mean, they could do both.

• 1:11:57Speaker 03

  They can do both.

• 1:11:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Maybe not the same kid necessarily reading both at the same age.

• 1:12:04Speaker 03

  Probably I would say, don't read my book if you are a child. Yeah. Mostly it's got a lot of swearing in it and you definitely shouldn't know about it. And also because the Romans are the Romans, a lot of sexual violence, which I wouldn't recommend that children read.

• 1:12:18Liv Albert?

  The Romans were indeed the Romans.

• 1:12:21Speaker 03

  They were. And so, but you know, read the Odyssey and then when you grow up and you're like,

• 1:12:28Liv Albert?

  And you're like, I think Eumaeus probably didn't love his,

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:12:33Liv Albert?

  Slavers quite so much. And then you can read your book and expand.

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  And it'll expand all of the complexities of that.

• 1:12:41Liv Albert?

  But no, I just generally think it's really good and it's really important that books about the ancient world, overall, across the board, are doing things like this of just like, looking into the everyone else. The 99%, but that being like, not the historical man that wrote down what we have been, understanding as history for 2000 years. Like, you know, yeah.

• 1:13:06Speaker 03

  And I think that it's an expansion of the idea of history, like so much of the, like, I have at least one book from my undergraduate, which is like, Roman Life, um, kind of general textbook, which has one chapter, which is women and slaves.

• 1:13:20Liv Albert?

  I was almost gonna make that as like when I made that, because I was like, oh, but was it, was that the chapter? Honestly, that I feel like that's quite common. Yeah.

• 1:13:28Speaker 03

  And you're just like, oh, okay. So it's all the white men and all of the like elite men.

• 1:13:34Liv Albert?

  Just Roman, yeah, elite Roman men versus white, but like.

• 1:13:37Speaker 03

  And then also women and slaves. And the women is always just elite women.

• 1:13:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Speaker 03

  Usually like empresses and the wives of senators. So like not even representative of 99% of women. And then slaves is always male slaves and female slaves are excluded. So women who experience enslavement almost never come into their conversation, like the broad history conversation is always just men. And it's always basically Spartacus. And then they're always talking about like the very elite kind of type of enslaved man as well. And you're like, oh, okay. So history is basically war politics. And then.

• 1:14:22Liv Albert?

  Expansionism.

• 1:14:23Speaker 03

  Expansion, yeah, and imperialism. And then when you want to kind of do diversity, you just talk about the people who are around those men.

• 1:14:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah, everyone else.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  At the very highest level. And then everyone else who exists outside of that category is not history. They're just like, I don't know, mud, like, or just like, I think that history is also talking about all of those people. Because if anything, their experience is the most common. And if you want to talk about what the ancient world was like, which is what people really want to talk about, like, when you talk to people who don't like history or don't read history or don't like, because they will always be like, oh, it's just like a list of dates. It's just, you know. And their experience of history is school history where they were taught like a bunch of dates and a bunch of treaties and a bunch of things that Napoleon did or whatever. And you're like, well, no, that's

• 1:15:18Speaker 03

  a version of history, but. Would you like to know this really fun fact about when Tiberius fell over? And like, here's a really interesting thing about how Romans have public toilets and they're communal.

• 1:15:30Liv Albert?

  The sponge, not the sponge.

• 1:15:32Speaker 03

  The sponge, but even just the communal aspect of it, like, there's like 16 toilets and everyone's gonna sit next to each other and watch each other and just have a chat.

• 1:15:39Liv Albert?

  Share a sponge.

• 1:15:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, and people are like, what? And then from that, you can expand out into talking about like, oh yeah, and then they like, this would happen at Ross and this is what they're doing and da, da, da, da, da. And then people are like, tend to be very interested.

• 1:15:54Liv Albert?

  And that's not what we're getting in like, the wider presentation of the ancient world, like pop culture wise, and that's what's so disappointing.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  They're just doing emperors and gladiators.

• 1:16:05Liv Albert?

  The Odyssey is just like weirdly sepia toned, like, I've never seen the Mediterranean, I've never seen the Mediterranean look more boring.

• 1:16:16Speaker 03

  I've never seen it look so gray.

• 1:16:18Liv Albert?

  Never in my life have I been, like, I've been in Greece in January, I think I can confidently say I've been enough times, like, are you kidding? I'm so furious, let alone the fact they didn't hire a single Greek person in that entire, it's revolting. And then also, and that's not even like, I understand people get so annoyed when historians and things nitpick, like historical quote unquote accuracy, and I'm like, that's fair. I'm not even nitpicking that, like, I just want the color of the Mediterranean to physically exist in the way that it does in reality.

• 1:16:48Speaker 03

  I just don't want it to look like someone, for some reason, like washed a white t-shirt with a black t-shirt and then I'm watching it through that.

• 1:16:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and I want a single, at least one person from the culture you are depicting to be physically in the movie. Like, come on, no, anyway, sorry, again, not about the Odyssey.

• 1:17:06Speaker 03

  This is something that you don't usually have to deal with, with the ancient world, usually they've gone for, like, they should film it in Malta and everything looks like very yellow. Whereas, and that's like-

• 1:17:17Liv Albert?

  But the Americans, they make it, it's, to me, this looks, it's like Troy all over again, in so many ways, yeah.

• 1:17:23Speaker 03

  But it's, they've given it, it makes me think of, like, whenever they make a medieval film and they're like, we've made it gritty and you know- That it's gritty because no one's ever seen a color.

• 1:17:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah, never, never, truly. It's like they just sucked all the color out of the Mediterranean.

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  And that's how you know it's a gritty version of the Odyssey because it's effectively, it's practically black and white.

• 1:17:47Liv Albert?

  I mean, and speaking of medieval, there is one scene where there are like basically walking suits of medieval armor chasing after. So we got it all, we got it all.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  I, yeah, I can't wait to find out what Nolan says. I hope he's gonna go for the kind of Ridley Scott approach of the, were you there? Then what are you gonna?

• 1:18:02Liv Albert?

  Oh, God. Yeah, I'm sure that I'm sure that that's exactly what the armor looked like. I'm sure that they loved pants, right? The ancient Greeks loved pants. We know that about them.

• 1:18:11Speaker 03

  Every, if anything, I would say was their favorite thing.

• 1:18:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  Massive pants and loads of armor. That's the.

• 1:18:17Liv Albert?

  On men, exactly, yeah.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  Oh, that the two things that I would say that I know all about the armor and trousers.

• 1:18:22Liv Albert?

  They love clothes. Yeah, they absolutely, they're always wearing clothes.

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  Yep. Um, yeah.

• 1:18:29Liv Albert?

  All I can see in my head is like that. I mean, there's so many versions of this, but any one of them, the pot where a red figure where it's just like two, it's supposed to be probably the Trojan War. Two warriors fighting each other, but they're completely naked, except for shields and helmets. So you're like, that's great.

• 1:18:45Speaker 03

  That's great. They're naked, they're colorful. And if they can be naked again at any given moment.

• 1:18:54Liv Albert?

  They're gonna be. Oh, I got that in my book too. I'm very proud of there's because I do like the athletic games. I do get to tell kids that the Olympics were originally performed naked and oiled up.

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  And honestly, we should bring it back.

• 1:19:05Liv Albert?

  Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, again, I did not mean to make it about the Odyssey, but that's the only thing my brain knows at this moment.

• 1:19:14Speaker 03

  Honestly, it's a relief from talking about the horrors of slavery.

• 1:19:18Liv Albert?

  It's slightly lighter at least. Yeah. Um, I just, yeah, it, it sounds fascinating. The book came behind you. So is the UK title service or is it a different book?

• 1:19:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. So no, this is the same book. So the UK title is service.

• 1:19:31Liv Albert?

  I thought I had seen that on social media.

• 1:19:33Speaker 03

  And the North American title, so for the US and Canada is not built in a day and it's got a bright orange cover. Um, but they haven't sent me a copy of it yet. So.

• 1:19:43Liv Albert?

  Well, and I realize there's no video anyway, but this is the UK title. And I'm so fascinated by the differences in UK and North American titles.

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:19:51Liv Albert?

  Like, I see this so often, but that one specifically is like, oh, that's so, because every time I talk to people from the UK and, and I'm over there, like, the thing that always stands out to me most is, like, the way you all, uh, uh, like, are more aware of ancient history broadly, like, as a culture. And, and yeah, so they're like, they'll read a book called Service, whereas in the US, they're like, no, not built in a day. Like, it's got, I mean, it's a good title, but it just sounds very, much more American, you know?

• 1:20:20Speaker 03

  The American publishers, and this happened with the last ones, oh, because my last book was in the UK, it's called, uh, A History of the Roman Empire and Twenty One Women. Um, and was from beginning to end of the Roman Empire through women.

• 1:20:32Liv Albert?

  Have you wanted to talk about that? You might need to come back.

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Um, and it's basically like, for, for starting with the foundation, with like, the woman who is supposedly Romulus's wife, and then going all the way through to like, four fifty. Um, and, um, but through women that you've never heard of. So no women who had their own biography. Boudicca is the only one who got in, but only because I wanted to write about Cartomachia.

• 1:20:57Speaker 03

  But basically all women that you've never heard of. Um, and, um, in the UK, so in the UK, it's history of the Roman Empire and Twenty One Women, which is what it is. Um, and in the US, they were like, oh, we really liked a fatal thing. Like, can we do a pun title? Which is why it ended up being Rome of One's Own, which is a great title.

• 1:21:13Liv Albert?

  It is a great, that is a great. No, that's the thing. I, I kind of love that you have the two options. Like, you have very fun, punny, North American titles. And then, yeah, and then like, a little, like, highbrow, but in still, like, in a, in an accessible and interesting way. Yeah. Just enjoy that. And I like Latin connections.

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  I like the Latin. Yeah. I like how kind of punchy it is. Um, and a lot of people, I will say that I think the Americans were probably right because it's surprising how many people are a bit like, is it just a pun? And I'm like, no, it's the Latin word for slave.

• 1:21:49Liv Albert?

  Oh, like, serve us.

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I was like, no, that'd be a rubbish pun, but okay.

• 1:21:54Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I, I didn't even see the pun until.

• 1:21:57Speaker 03

  But yeah, so I feel like in a culture that does even less Latin than we do here.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  It might have been a bit, they've been like, this is just the worst pun I've ever heard in my entire life.

• 1:22:12Liv Albert?

  I've recently, there's so many things now where I'm like, is it common knowledge or is it my knowledge?

• 1:22:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:22:18Liv Albert?

  Which is unhinged. And I've been faced with that a lot over Roman numerals, which I always assumed were more well-known over here, just like the basic ones. But I've been, I mean, granted, I watch, I've been watching like trashy reality TV. But there's just been some trashy reality TV where people can't read like the Roman numeral for like six and I'm like, wow. Like, yeah, I'm not talking like over thirty.

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  You're not talking like two thousand and eight?

• 1:22:41Liv Albert?

  No, no, no, we're talking in the I, I, I, I's.

• 1:22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, no, I had, I'm gonna call it a teachable moment for me quite recently when I was at a pub quiz with friends of mine who have known me for years and have listened to me talk about the Romans like a lot. And I would assume had read my books or at least pretended to. And one of the questions, it was a very strange pub quiz, but the, one of the questions was, did Cicero live in Athens or Rome?

• 1:23:15Liv Albert?

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:23:17Speaker 03

  And I was the only person there who knew the answer to that.

• 1:23:19Liv Albert?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:23:22Speaker 03

  That.

• 1:23:24Liv Albert?

  So I guess, yeah, like, I mean, I don't know what normal people know.

• 1:23:27Speaker 03

  Exactly. Apparently I don't know what normal people know either. So I was like, well, this, one has horrified me, but also is good because now I'll be like, okay, I will just stop acting as though everybody is, knows as much about Cicero as I do and thinks about him as often as I do.

• 1:23:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah, who, who knows all the things about Cicero, the most fun man in history.

• 1:23:50Speaker 03

  Any, can you say any fun? Cause he's fun to bully. It's my, one of my hobbies is bullying Cicero.

• 1:23:56Liv Albert?

  I appreciate that. Cicero and I have beef just because like way back in my undergrad, which I barely remember. But like I did one Roman literature class and had to read just a bunch of Cicero's speeches. And I just think it fully ruined Rome for me. And then I, my like Hellenist vibe fully solidified in that moment.

• 1:24:16Speaker 03

  I think that's very fair because Cicero's speeches are a pain. I just read.

• 1:24:21Liv Albert?

  Why make me do that?

• 1:24:22Speaker 03

  They should make you read his letters, which are much funnier. Um, I just read a bi- a new biography of Cicero that's coming out, um, and has so many of his lessons. I'm like, God, Cicero, you're such a little whiny Burke.

• 1:24:36Speaker 03

  Um, I remember now why I love making fun of you.

• 1:24:40Liv Albert?

  It's fun to bully ancient men. They really deserve it.

• 1:24:43Speaker 03

  And any man who will write with a straight face, how happy is the Rome that was born in my consulship?

• 1:24:53Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah. Famously the happiest time in Rome.

• 1:24:56Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:24:56Liv Albert?

  From what, what minimal Roman history knowledge lives in my head, happiest time.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  The consulship where there was nearly a civil war and then he extrajudicially executed a bunch of people was really happy.

• 1:25:10Liv Albert?

  It was good times.

• 1:25:11Speaker 03

  And he, after the fact, he was like, it was the happiest time and everyone was the happiest because I'm the best. Um, and I am now going to refer to myself as the father of the country, uh, repeatedly.

• 1:25:21Liv Albert?

  The way America is just a modern Rome.

• 1:25:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:27Liv Albert?

  Frustrating in my head. Like the more, I think the, the, the neurodiversity pattern recognition in my brain is really like having so much trouble over the past, like two years. I mean, probably the past 10, but really getting going in the past two. And man, I just can't unsee it.

• 1:25:43Speaker 03

  No, once you see it, it's hard to unsee. Um, um.

• 1:25:48Liv Albert?

  Gaslighting in the history books? You mean, what?

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:25:51Liv Albert?

  No, no one would do that.

• 1:25:53Speaker 03

  No one would do that. No one would go around calling themselves a father of the country.

• 1:25:57Liv Albert?

  No. I mean, and as Trump keeps telling us, America is the happiest it's ever been right now when gas is eight dollars a gallon.

• 1:26:04Speaker 03

  Who would ever come lie, who would lie about that?

• 1:26:06Liv Albert?

  It's really great.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  He's gonna go on the internet and lie.

• 1:26:09Liv Albert?

  Anyway, anyway, this is how I turn everything. Um, these days it's just impossible not to, but also you wrote a book about slavery in the Roman Empire. So thankfully for me, you walked right into it.

• 1:26:19Speaker 03

  I did, and I made.

• 1:26:19Liv Albert?

  A good sport.

• 1:26:20Speaker 03

  Explicit comparisons to America 150 years ago, so.

• 1:26:25Liv Albert?

  I don't, I'm sorry, I, Michaela, my wonderful producer, did most of the chatting with your publicist. So I'm trying to remember if I have access to your book, but if I don't, at this current moment, I'm gonna get it. Because I'm very excited.

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:38Liv Albert?

  To, yeah, I, this is something I'd love to talk about more. I always, that's the show. The goal is always to be talking about, you know, the lesser represented voices in all forms in the ancient world. But, um, you know, obviously in a way that I can't, I don't want to just be dark all the time. So it's nice to have these kinds of conversations about very dark topics, but where we can still have a laugh. And also the delightful inclusion of your cat.

• 1:27:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:27:04Liv Albert?

  Made herself heard and I really appreciate that.

• 1:27:08Speaker 03

  We got two cats, so it was kind of, uh, both the Romans, she's called Livia. So she's a very Roman cat, so she obviously came to reassert the Roman supremacy.

• 1:27:19Liv Albert?

  There we go. And my Greek cat snuck in here. I do have another one too, but she is very quiet and keeps to herself. Her name is Squid, which keeps to himself. Yeah.

• 1:27:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:30Liv Albert?

  I love cats. I love your inclusion. My, I had a cat pass away a couple of years ago, but he was sixteen, he was seventeen. And he was in the show so much because he was really vocal like that. So it always makes me happy. I like a good cat scream in the podcast.

• 1:27:42Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, she's real shouty, bless her. Um, like when she wants to be, um, she sleeps like ninety percent of the day and then she wakes up.

• 1:27:49Liv Albert?

  When she's awake, right? Yeah.

• 1:27:50Speaker 03

  Making sure that you know she's awake.

• 1:27:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yesterday I was in here recording as well and my, the other cat Squid was like outside yelling. And my roommate said, she's like, I think she just was wondering, she could hear you, but couldn't get to you and needed to know where you were. So.

• 1:28:03Speaker 03

  Just wanted to know if, uh, if you were okay and should she talk to you?

• 1:28:07Liv Albert?

  And also my listeners love when we talk about our cats on the podcast. So that's a bonus.

• 1:28:12Speaker 03

  The same.

• 1:28:14Liv Albert?

  So delightful. Well, okay, speaking of, um, is there, you have a podcast, you or your aunt, you've been a regular contributor? Or what do you want to promote other than your book?

• 1:28:22Speaker 03

  Well, I, um, so the book, obviously not be on a day. And then also, so I have a podcast called History is Sexy. My cat appears on it regularly. It's me and my good friend Janina and we are. Answer history questions that people send us that they don't want to research themselves. So we recently did a big deep dive into what Stoicism actually is.

• 1:28:43Liv Albert?

  Ooh.

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

  We did one on the Spartans and how massively overrated they are.

• 1:28:50Liv Albert?

  I did a series, very similar a few years back.

• 1:28:53Speaker 03

  And then the most recent one we did was on Queen Rana Rana Valova of the Kingdom of Madagascar and her confrontations with the British and French empires. That was very interesting.

• 1:29:06Liv Albert?

  Does she come out on top?

• 1:29:07Speaker 03

  She kind of does because she is considered to be this like monster. Like she's called the female Caligula in popular culture.

• 1:29:15Liv Albert?

  Oh, I love when they demonize women like this.

• 1:29:18Speaker 03

  And then there's all kinds of like strange stories are told about her, like her killing 50% of her own population in order to resist imperialism, which is just like certifiably untrue.

• 1:29:30Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's propaganda if I've ever heard.

• 1:29:32Speaker 03

  Exactly. And yeah, so, you know, into, we had a look at what she was really doing and what she really said because it's like the 1830s. So we have loads of her own writing and her own letters. And you can see what she actually said and you don't have to trust the word of a British missionary who left the country and was quite grumpy about it, which is nice for me as a Roman historian who mostly has to deal with just the voices of the worst people.

• 1:30:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, that's nice to have something more contemporary where you're like.

• 1:30:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like a little break every so often.

• 1:30:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and a woman wrote something. I've been actually, I've started reading Frankenstein because I've never actually, which is, I have an English Lit major too, so I'm doing a terrible job. But it's like, oh, it's kind of nice after so much ancient talking about women to actually read the work of one, even if the poor woman had to write about men in order to be taken seriously, but still. Yeah.

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  Um, but still fascinating.

• 1:30:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. In any case, oh my God, clearly we're, this has been too much fun, which means my ADHD goes wild. But truly, this has been so much fun. Oh, yeah. History is sexy. Is there anywhere, do you have people to follow you anywhere?

• 1:30:44Speaker 03

  I don't know. You can follow me on Instagram at Emma Southon. Um, we have a podcast, which is the historysexy.com or emmashouden.com. If you Google either of those things, like I'm basically the only person who will come up. And Instagram is the only like social media that I have anymore. So you can follow me there. There will be many pictures of Livia.

• 1:31:05Liv Albert?

  Beautiful. That's what we want. Just more cats all the time.

• 1:31:10Liv Albert?

  Well, thank you so much. This has been so much fun.

• 1:31:12Speaker 03

  Way too much fun. Yeah, too, too much fun to be considered work, really, but I.

• 1:31:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and about slavery.

• 1:31:36Liv Albert?

  Oh, nerds. Thank you as always for listening. I'm so thrilled to have this conversation and we have some more that have been pre-recorded and are going to be coming soon. So stay tuned. It is technically as of, I guess, next week, the, we're going into the 10th year of this podcast. It is the ninth anniversary. And how wild is that? So I don't know. Stay tuned. I'm going to try to do something special. Maybe if I have it in me, the Odyssey really, I have to say, the Odyssey took it out of me, the movie, obviously. But also, um, as of Wednesday, uh, wildfire smoke from like the entirety of the province, Ontario ruled in and

• 1:32:14Liv Albert?

  it's just really something, living in this apocalypse as someone who's spent the last 10 years trying to scream about how all of this was gonna happen. Um, anyway, it's, uh, climate change is real and, uh, protect yourselves with this air. Um, and also I'm just thinking of all of the people whose everything is on fire. And as usually it is the indigenous peoples of Canada who are hit first and hardest.

• 1:32:45Liv Albert?

  Eat the rich. Politicians up first. Let's Talk with Myths Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Pangu is the Hermes to my Olympians, my incredible producer. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network. We are trying to bring you more, but oh my god, my nervous system is shot. Select music is by Luke Chaos. Thank you all for all of your support. If you are keen to get ad-free episodes of this and more, check out our Patreon where you can help keep the show going. And we truly, really appreciate it, patreon.com/MythsBaby, or just there are a bunch of links in the episode's description on how you can help. And things you may like. I am Liv and I love this shit.

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