Professor Ronald Hutton

speaker

248 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 2 Aug

Professor Ronald Hutton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Empire: World History · 383. Romans vs Druids: The War For Celtic Britain (Ep 1) · 2 Aug 2026 podcast

We want more of that.

Well, you don't get any more of that because it's the only mention.

And the Roman soldiers were paralysed with shock and terror.

They'd never seen anything like this, which does seem to indicate that druids cursing Romans was something they hadn't encountered before.

And the strapping hero of the governor, square jawed, probably went to a good school, steps forward and encourages his men by telling them they're cowards if they run away from power.

magicians and women, and the Roman legions, heartened by their general, cross the water and indeed slaughter the enemy army, including, one assumes, the Druids and the women, and expose the fact that a religion dedicated to human sacrifice

had been carried out in the island.

This is the only mention of druids in Britain.

It's a spectacular story.

We've no idea where the truth lies on the spectrum with at one end, this is a totally accurate account taken from an eyewitness who was on the spot.

Shading through, Tacitus met a

superannuated drunken legionary in a bar in Rome who spun him this story.

Two, and this is possible, Tacitus invented the whole episode himself because his history was getting dull and he needed a moral account which showed Rome

and the Roman general whom he admired in the best light.

You're a little cynic, Ronald.

No, I'm not a cynic.

I'm following what the experts say.

The latest book on Tacitus as a historian has the title The History of Make-Believe.

That's really quite telling.

Well, we can believe the Greeks and Romans when they talk about themselves.

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