Roman Prisoners of War

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We know all about the battles of the Roman Empire: the opposing sides, their weapons and incentives. But if history is written by the winners, what happened if you lost? In this episode, Dr Jo Ball, battlefield archaeologist at the University of Liverpool, helps to fill in this gap. Jo takes us through the options of the victorious army; to release, kill or capture; and then discusses the treatment of those who fell into this last category. Listen as Tristan and Jo explore the experiences of prisoners of war in Ancient Rome, how this might differ if those taken were also Roman, and how we know anything about them at all.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's the ancients on History Hit.
0:05.5	I'm Tristan Hughes, your host.
0:07.6	And in today's podcast, we're covering a really interesting, extraordinary aspect of
0:12.3	ancient military history.
0:13.9	But also one that, as you're about to find out, can be very gruesome.
0:18.0	We're talking about prisoners of war, particularly in the ancient Roman world.
0:23.3	Now, we're going to be looking at prisoners of war in regards to enemies of Rome who are
0:28.4	captured by the Romans.
0:29.9	What would happen to those figures?
0:31.8	But we're also going to be looking at when Roman soldiers were unfortunate enough to
0:35.5	be captured by their enemies.
0:37.4	And what could happen to them then?
0:40.1	Now rejoining me to talk through this topic, I was delighted to get back on the show Dr.
0:44.3	Joe Bull from the University of Liverpool.
0:46.7	Joe has been on the podcast once before to talk about that infamous clash in 9 AD, the
0:51.6	Battle of the Toyterberg Forest.
0:53.8	And that, of course, will get a bit of a mention in this podcast, don't you worry.
0:58.0	So that further ado is Joe.
1:05.4	Joe, it's great to have you back on the show.
1:07.4	Thank you.
1:08.4	Thanks for having me.
1:09.4	Not a problem.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.