Tom Holland and Mary Harrington: The Rise and Reach of Rome

Socrates in the City

Society & Culture

4.7 • 537 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2026

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“The idea of there being human rights is as fantastical as believing that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day…”

In this spirited dialogue, host Mary Harrington is joined by historian and bestselling author Tom Holland to explore why Rome’s long shadow still falls across the modern imagination, and why Americans are particularly drawn to learning about this great empire. Drawing from Holland’s latest book, Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age, the two discuss the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind. The conversation also ranges from Athens to Jerusalem to Rome, examining how these cities helped forge the moral and political grammar of the West. Along the way, they venture through the legacy of the Persian Empire, the upheavals of the Crusades, and how those ancient impulses continue in the minds of modern people.

The post Tom Holland and Mary Harrington: The Rise and Reach of Rome first appeared on Socrates in the City.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rome is simultaneously very familiar, but at the same time, it's fabulously weird and alien.
0:09.0	And that's the key to great science fiction.
0:10.8	And I think that is for us is the fascination of Rome today.
0:14.0	Gibbon thought that Rome survived as long as it remained pagan.
0:18.2	And he took the view that Christianity was the beginning of the end.
0:22.3	I think he has it exactly the wrong way around. I think he's got it backwards.
0:25.0	Exactly the wrong way around. A new age of empires is the dread phrase that gets sloshed around.
0:30.1	Do you think that's overblown? I think it's completely a possibility because I think the idea of
0:34.4	there being human rights is as fantastical as believing that the Lord Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.
0:44.7	Welcome to Socrates' dialogues. I'm Mary Harrington.
0:48.3	So one of my favourite internet arguments over the last few years is the one where everybody decided to have a massive
0:55.9	disagreement about how often it is that men really think about the Roman Empire. Do men think
1:00.3	about the Roman Empire every day? Does this apply to all men? Today I am very fortunate to be joined
1:05.4	by somebody who probably has thought about the Roman Empire more than most. Tom Holland,
1:10.2	you are the author of numerous
1:13.3	books, including a best-selling award-winning trilogy about the Roman Empire. You are the co-host
1:19.4	with Dominic Sandbrook of the world's most popular history podcast. The rest is history. Welcome
1:25.1	and thank you so much for joining me. Thank you very much for
1:27.7	inviting me. Tom, tell me, is it right? Is it true? Is it true? Do all men think about the
1:33.5	Roman Empire every day? And if so, why? Why Rome? I think men were supposed to think about it
1:40.2	10 times a day. And that seemed to me very, very small number of times. I think about it
1:45.9	a lot more than that. But I think also it was specifically American men. And I think there may be
	...

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