I'm John Besser with the author Emma Southern. Her new book is a Rome of one's own,

the forgotten women of the Roman Empire, forgotten not in the least in this telling because we go immediately to

we'll go quickly through the story of a couple of Etruscan kids. Some

Loucomo who is a Corinthia, is a Greek, but he marries an Etruscan young woman

named Tanakeel and they pick up stakes and go to the new Rome.

And through an amazing series of coincidences,

they become the king and queen of Rome.

I'm going fast through their story, not only because it's fantastic but because I want to get

to Lucretia and Tullia because I'm looking for this diad that sustains the Roman telling. We're recalling always

that this pleases Augustus. So we're not getting a story here as we understand history. We're getting a story here that pleases the boss.

Yeah.

Tannakeel and well Tarakine, Tarkinius, he takes on the name of an Etruscan city to make himself king.

Tarquinius and Tannakeel produce heirs and those heirs become the kingship between the 8th century and the 6th century.

And in the telling it's important to come across a woman named Lucretia because

Emma assures me you can remove all the women in these stories except for Lucretia

and you're okay but if you

move Lucretia you've lost Rome.

Yes. Lucretia is a good woman at home spinning wool for a toga and her husband and his friends are out battling somewhere and one

night they're drinking and they propose to each other what is their test?

Their test they get into a bet or a drinking game about who has the best wife and

the test is what their wives are doing when their husbands are away.

And the idea is that if their wives are being good, then they're

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