Hello, and welcome to the history of...

Wait a minute.

Hi there. You're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast.

Episode 22, Children of Mars, the Roman Kingdom and Early Republic, 7.53 to 390 BC.

Before we begin, I feel that I must admit something to you all. Despite producing a show

called The Hellenistic Age podcast, which focuses on the realms like the Seleukin Empire, the Bactrians,

the Macedonians, and the like, my favorite topic of history to study about remains ancient Rome.

I remember being transfixed as a kid by Ridley Scott's Gladiator, and I poured over countless books in the school library about the Coliseum, Pompeii, Roman Warfare, and so on and so forth.

As I've gotten older, I have expanded my palate to love and appreciate

other aspects of history, especially the Hellenistic age. Still, I remain a Roman fanboy at heart.

But despite my love, there is a reason to focus on setting up the Romans across a couple of episodes.

In my opinion, the Romans are perhaps the greatest inheritors of the Hellenistic world. Let me expound upon that. The Romans

differed from the founded kingdoms in the wake of Alexander's conquests. Unlike the Saluquid

and Ptolemy's, they had no direct cultural or political links back to Greece.

Ironically, they'd be viewed as barbarians by the Greeks, while the Romans themselves thought of the Greeks and Hellenistic powers as decadent Easterners.

Yet, while the Romans would slowly absorb and conquer many of the Hellenistic kingdoms and a process of Romanization,

they themselves would become culturally indebted to the Greek and Hellenistic intellectual and

literary traditions, and thus thoroughly Hellenize themselves. Therefore, it is important that we

look at the lead-up to Rome's introduction onto the stage of the Hellenistic world, via the

invasion of Pyrrhus of Epiottos in 280 BC. As from then on, the Romans would grow from a

backwater to the premier power of the Mediterranean and wreak havoc amongst their larger neighbors.

Join me as we begin the first of a two-part series on The Rise of the Roman Republic.

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