Hello, my name is Mark DeSantis, and today I will be speaking with Lindsay Powell,

the celebrated ancient historian and author of 2016 Germanicus,

The Magnificent Life and Mysterious Death of Rome's most popular general,

as well as 2023's Marcus Agrippa, right-hand man of Caesar Augustus,

most published by Pen and Sword. Listeners to this podcast and viewers on our YouTube channel

will know Lindsay as a long-standing participant in the Ancient Warfare podcast. His latest book,

Tiberius, from Masterly commander to masterful emperor of Rome,

will be out soon from pen and sword, and it is the subject of this episode.

Welcome, Lindsay. How are you?

Well, thank you, Mark, and I feel very chuffed by that introduction.

You know, it's very interesting. There are lots of historians,

so when you speak in kind

terms like that, it makes me warm and fuzzy. All true. So, Lindsay, why don't you tell me what

the political situation of Rome was like at the time that Tiberius was born?

Humiltuous is the word, I think, the best encapsulates it. When Tiberius was born in

November of 42 BC, it was only two years after the assassination of Julius Caesar, which then

plunged the Roman world into a fierce civil war ending the two battles of Philippi in Greece. And in fact,

Tiberius' parents are refugees. They're sort of escaping,

having switched from the support of Julius Caesar side to supporting, in this case, the other side.

And by now we're talking a serious problem. And they're sort of far away from home.

So they're trying to get back to Rome at this point.

So that's the background. It's very, very bad.

...