Episode 350 - Questions XIX
The History of Byzantium

Episode 350 - Questions XIX

B2Upper-intermediateApril 22, 202639 min

I answer your questions about where the Romans got their gold from, how Romania ended up with a Romance language, Byzantine games of polo and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Today we continue looking at listener questions. These are somewhat timeless inquiries.

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  • B22:26
  • B27:20
  • B211:34
  • B218:23
  • C123:27
  • B228:21
  • B232:57
  • B235:35

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B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

A1 13%A2 35%B1 27%B2 22%C1 3%
  • 75% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 143 words a minute: a natural pace.
  • 192 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium episode 350, Questions 19. Today we continue looking at listener questions. These are somewhat timeless inquiries. of VA asks why teenage emperors in the earlier Roman period – Caligula, Nero, Elagabalus, Commodus – turned out to be terrible people, while Byzantium produced a series of teenagers

0:35

like Constance II, Constantine IV and Theophilus, who turned into mature adult emperors. I suspect I've answered a variation of this before. Why do we have very few mad, bad emperors in Byzantium. The first part of the answer is that for the Julio-Claudians the whole concept of the emperor

0:57

was new. It wasn't yet clear what an emperor was or what limits should be placed on their power. Augustus worked very hard to make it clear that he wasn't a king and yet some of his successes felt they were and acted accordingly.

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