Ah they and welcome to Emperor's of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Dr. Rianen Evans, associate professor in

classics and ancient history at Latrobe University. This is episode CXXII-I-V.

How many letters can you get together there?

Sh, I'm doing my intro.

Okay. In which you ask the questions and mostly Rianen will answer them.

Hi Rianen.

Hello.

I don't often do those live do I?

No I know I don't get to drop comments in and

no yeah and correct me because you need another space to correct me and this is

essentially if you've seen Wallace and Grommet this is Gromet laying down the train tracks as he's running over them, which I think might have happened in the wrong trousers.

Right. I'll send you a gift. It basically just means, you know, I'm recording and putting the podcast out really quickly which is why I just did my intro. Yeah, I'll send you a gift.

All right, so let's open with a question from Graham London.

Did the average Roman still use the consulship to mark each year once the role of the consuls became less important during the imperial period?

So would it have been the sixth year of the reign of Septumia Severus for example.

It is partly that and say on official buildings or you know inscriptions we've got

that is what gets put up there I mean they're paid for by the Emperor aren't they? So it's yeah the

fourth year of his tribunition power or his sixth consulship whatever. Yeah. So yes in

official contexts the precise roles of the Emperor and the number of times he's done it. The question. The average Roman, it's really hard for us to know always.

But what we do know is at least elite senatorial Romans still regarded it as really important to be Consul.

To the extent that, the Emperor actually awarded more than one round of Consulships a year.

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