How Civilizations Die - with Paul Cooper
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I'm Jake Brennan, and on the Disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison, or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of, or that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bundy. Listen to Disgraceland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died, the third way. Pushkin.
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That's patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash cautionary club. Britannia. The farthest, bleakest province of the Roman Empire. 390 CE. A harsh, misty land of savages and strange mystics. 40,000 soldiers, about an eighth of the imperial army, are needed to control the unruly native tribes, protect the archipelago from pirates, and push any marauders back over Hadrian's Wall and into Scotland. Such a mighty army needs a tremendous leader, and they have one in the shape of Magnus Maximus. Maximus is a distinguished general. As a younger man, he helped restore order after the Picts from Scotland, the Scotty from Ireland, and the Saxons from the continent joined forces to attack Roman Britannia in the Great Barbarian Conspiracy of 367 CE.
Then he fought in successful campaigns against the Moors in North Africa and the Alemanni on the Danube River. For ten years now, Maximus has governed Britannia. He's put down raids by the Picts, built a huge church on London's Tower Hill, and forced the country to bend to his will. But he can't wait to leave this wet, windy and wild isle, this backwater of the Empire. He spies opportunity back on the mainland. A young, unpopular emperor sits on the throne in Rome. His courtiers are turning against him and rivals are galloping their armies. Maximus is a great military general and he leads the biggest, toughest army in the empire. He instructs the entire Roman garrison of Britannia to board a fleet of ships and they sail for the mainland and victory.
If only Maximus had consulted the history books first. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales.
Magnus Maximus wasn't the first governor of Britannia with ambitions to be a Roman emperor. Here to tell us all about him and the history he should have studied is Paul Cooper, presenter of the podcast Fall of Civilizations, Stories of Greatness and Decline, and the author of a book of the same name. Paul, welcome to Cautionary Tales.
It's a great pleasure to be here.
Paul, you're going to tell us all about Magnus Maximus, but first I wanted to know what attracted you to studying the fall rather than the rise of civilizations?
My PhD focused on the idea of the ruin in literature and film, and also how various ruins have become figures of importance for culture throughout history.
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