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I'm John Batson 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 Lucamo, who is a Corinthian, is a Greek, but he marries an Etruscan young woman named Tanakil,

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. Tanakil and, well, Tarakeneas, he takes on the name of an Etruscan city to make himself king.

Tarkinius and Tanakil 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 remove 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.

...