Paul Cooper
speaker
254 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 5 Jun
Paul Cooper’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Yeah, absolutely.
He's a good governor.
But the empire is going through a period of political upheaval and turmoil.
This is during the reign of the Emperor Commodus, who's memorably played by Joaquin Phoenix in the movie Gladiator.
Well, actually, if you can believe it, I think the movie had to dial down some of the insanity of Commodus.
Commodus was fascinated with gladiators and with the idea of himself as a gladiator.
And he would actually go into the arena himself to kill animals like ostriches and giraffes and exotic animals of this kind.
He once cut off the head of an ostrich and went to the stands where the senators were sitting and shouted up to them, you will be next.
It's certainly not.
It's a larger than life character who's violent, mad, tyrannical, you name it.
But Commodus dies in 192 AD and suddenly the empire is up for grabs.
And essentially the two contestants who emerge as the last people standing from a period of chaos that's called the Year of the Five Emperors.
are Clodius Albinus in Britain and the emperor Septimius Severus.
These two come together at the Battle of Lugdenum in 195 and it's an enormous battle that takes place over two days and Clodius Albinus is finally defeated.
When he realises he's going to lose he runs himself through with his dagger and the emperor Septimius Severus tramples him with his horse.
This is tragic for Albinus personally, but for Roman Britain, his departure was also a disaster.
Well, that's right.
I mean, if you're going to try and seize the imperial throne, you need every man you can take.
The loss of a single unit could mean the loss of a battle.
So he took every one of Britain's legions, but this leaves Britain largely defenceless.
Showing 121–140 of 254 · page 7 of 13
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